


Nature

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:02:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: please pretend commenting is turned off and please don't repost.





	Nature

From the throne, Loki can see everything.

He still can’t quite believe it.

Thor is going to Midgard.

To that woman.

After a mere two days of mourning.

Loki told himself Thor would return to Jane. And he told himself he could take it. On Alfheim he and Thor had often gone to the same bed, both with elves on each arm, and the six of them had rolled through the sheets for days on end. On Alfheim they were safe. The elves are a different species. No danger of pregnancy. No inadvertent heirs.

And Loki had never been jealous.

But that was bedsport. And, even then, Thor was forever beaming at him. Smacking his ass - in encouragement or congratulations, depending on what Loki was attempting or achieving. Cupping his jaw. Linking their arms or fingers as they slept.

And that was love.

And so is this.

And Loki’s heart balks at it, though his mind tries not to.

Let him roll through the sheets with the pretty little thing, Loki thinks. She is dust. What are the fifty years she has left to her in the face of all our centuries? She is nothing. We’ll outlast her. Thor will come back, and here I’ll be: “Hello, brother mine, I’ve missed you.” And I’ll make him forget her. I won’t even cheat. And I’ll have him forever.

But Loki wagered he’d have a year at least of watching Thor sorrow. Thor’s face is so lovely in grief. When Thor smiles it’s like the sun. But Thor is not the sun. Thor is the storm, and when he weeps you can see his true nature twisting all those perfect features.

To be left behind so easily is a shock. It stings every bit as much as it did the first time Loki saw his brother with Jane.

And now Thor is kissing her. He has her up in his arms, light as anything.

Loki sits on the throne with his fingers curling into claws and his pulse quickening in his veins until he can’t hear his own chant of “No no no…”

When Thor says, “May I take you to bed?” Jane nods against his jaw, and Loki pops the nails off of three of his own fingers as he squeezes Hlidskjalf’s arms.

Thor walks into the bedroom with Jane wrapped around him.

And then he stills, nostrils flared.

A scent he’d know anywhere.

“Is this how you mourn?” Loki asks, sitting cross-legged at the foot of Jane’s bed.

His voice is nearly a whisper, but it’s still giving away far more than he means to, trembling through his too-tight throat.

Thor feels Jane’s hair standing on end where her arms twine around his neck. Hears her pulse speed up. Smells adrenaline in her blood.

“Aye,” Thor says. “I would mourn those I love with love. With their joy and not my selfish sorrow. But now I think I should be mourning my father, not my brother. Is that so?”

“I gave him a proper burial,” Loki offers. “Though I’m afraid I’m the only one who saw it. Now we’re on equal footing, brother: I missed her funeral, and you missed his.”

“Oh, Thor, I’m so sorry,” Jane breathes, and Loki sees her whole body flex, hugging Thor as tightly as her limbs will allow.

Thor is rubbing Jane’s back with his right hand while his left still cups her backside to hold her up, gentle and sweet in spite of everything.

But what’s going through Thor’s head, even Loki cannot guess. Thor’s face is blank.

“Why have you come here?” Thor asks, voice hollow and distant.

“Why does the ocean seek the moon?” Loki sighs.

“What do you want?”

“You. Us. Same as ever.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what we’re for.”

“We’re not who we were,” Thor says, shaking his head.

“We will be,” Loki promises. “I’m going to make us gods again.”

“We never were. There are no gods,” Thor says, as his head turns fast to face his brother’s impassive mask.

Thor’s eyes blaze briefly, luminous blue, but fade as he takes a steadying breath and shakes his head. Loki sighs in annoyance.

“There could be,” Loki drawls.

“How?” Thor asks, frowning. “And at what cost?”

“Easily, and none: I have the stones,” Loki says, revealing the crown on his head that holds the six infinity gems. “We need never mourn each other.”

Thor stares at the circlet and sees The Tree as a ball of yarn. Stares at his brother’s green gaze and sees the cat that would unravel it.

“Thrice have I mourned you,” Thor murmurs. “But you are right: I shall never do it again.”

Thor sets Jane down and looks at her face, but his tears make it hard to see.

“I am sorry for forever dragging you into these things,” he says, shaking his head. “I have to go again. And I can make you no promises.”

“I know,” she whispers, nodding and spilling tears down her cheeks.“I’m sorry nothing can ever be easy for you.”

Thor gives her a grateful smile.

Thor grabs his brother by the elbow, hauling him from the bed and dragging him out onto the balcony, calling Mjolnir as he goes.

The sky outside is black and roiling.

“Why are you so cross?” Loki laughs. “Did you not wish for this? Your baby brother is alive and well.”

“We’re the same age, little fool,” Thor snarls. “What else don’t you know?”

“What?” Loki boggles. He hasn’t had time to seek knowledge of the past with the power of the gems. He’s just been sitting on Hlidskjalf and staring at his brother.

“You stole the stones from the rest of the realms while I fought Malekith,” Thor guesses.

“Obviously.”

“I needed your help!”  Thor barks.

“Clearly, you did not, for here you stand, and here sits the Aether.”

Thor shakes his head, staring at his brother.

His face looks fond.

“I am pleased you live,” Thor admits, eyes soft. “But it means I can lose you again, and I can’t endure it a fourth time - I won’t. So I’ll forever flee, and you’ll forever pursue; I’ll never submit, and you’ll never succeed; I’ll not surrender, and you’ll not be satisfied.”

Loki’s brow twists. What little pink his cheeks possess has faded. Even the red in his lips has lessened.

“It’s perfect, is it not?” Thor says, sadly. “Plays to our natures.”

Loki gapes at him and begins shaking his head from side to side, faintly but rapidly.

Thor spins Mjolnir and she pulls him up into the sky.

Loki looks on as his brother shrinks from sight. Then he finally remembers himself and holds out his hand to stop Thor in the air.

And Thor does stop, but his hammer does not.

Thor’s right arm is ripped out of its socket. He had the hammer’s strap around his wrist.

Loki’s eyes go wide at the blood falling through the air. He is not yet in the habit of disregarding all that happens. Not accustomed to being able to undo it with the stones. So he screams along with Jane, who is watching from her kitchen window.

Loki sees two beams of Bifrost, sent by Heimdall to catch Thor and Mjolnir

Jane sees four rays of colorful light.

One for Thor. One for his hammer. One for the crown. And, ten minutes later, one for Loki, who has been standing motionless, staring at the point in space from which his brother disappeared.

Heimdall catches Thor’s body in his right arm and catches Mjolnir in his left. He snags the crown with the right horn of his helm. He can hear it spinning there, gold on gold. He rips up Thor’s undershirt and binds Thor’s wound with the strips, then reaches for Mjolnir. He lets out a slow exhalation of relief and gratitude when she once again responds to his hand. He takes Thor to the healers with the hammer. He's reluctant to use the stones for anything physical. He has seen much magic, but seldom performed it himself. Like Thor, his gifts are bound to his being, and he prefers to do battle with his body. Sight is Heimdall’s sorcery, and the reality gem sits most easily with him. It lets him see all that has happened. He knows most of it already.

Mjolnir hurries Heimdall back to the Bifrost.

He sends Loki to Jotunheim.

Loki swears and takes the shape of a falcon before his feet have hit the ice. He makes for the pass high in the mountains that has veins of Bifrost running through it. Even with wings, the journey will take hours.

The healers seal Thor’s wound without any issue, but Thor lost a dangerous amount of blood and endured tremendous pain. His colorless face twists as he drifts through aching ugly dreams.

Heimdall waits.

It’s four hours before Loki reaches the path out of Jotunheim. Heimdall intercepts him with an intersecting branch of the Bifrost and Loki lands, blinking, in the golden dome. Heimdall hands Loki his brother’s severed arm, dragged here behind Mjolnir like some monstrous tail. Loki’s eyes go wide and his mouth warps in horror, but he clutches the limb to his breast like a child does its blanket after a nightmare.

“Does he live?” Loki gasps.

Heimdall opens the portal to Helheim and all but throws Loki through it.

And it is an underworld, but not the way people think. Helheim is entirely ocean and impossibly deep. All that lives lives miles below the surface where pressure and darkness have bred fearsome forms into the flora and fauna. The veins of Bifrost are deep in a trench. Loki will have to shift his shape at least a dozen times as he descends to survive in the ever-increasing pressure of the sea, and he’ll be hunted all the way down.

But the crown tells Heimdall that Loki has done this before, so he isn’t worried. He looks on as Loki lands with a splash, cursing all the while and still clutching his brother’s arm. Heimdall laughs when Loki drags the limb down with him. The journey will take at least three days. Heimdall makes his way to Thor’s side and waits for him to wake.

When Thor finally opens his eyes, he finds a bright gold gaze glowing down at him.

“I don’t suppose I was dreaming,” Thor croaks.

“I’m sorry,” Heimdall says, shaking his head twice.

“Does Loki still have the gems?”

“No,” Heimdall grins, and lifts his helmet just enough so that Thor can see the crown. It’s a tiny thing. Modest, but sturdy. The stones are set in holes cut into the gold and bezeled on each side so that the surface of each gem comes in contact with the skin of the wearer.

When Heimdall puts his helmet on, it conceals the thing completely.

Thor closes his eyes and smiles, then takes a deep breath.

“And I don’t suppose you put my arm back on its shoulder.”

“Sorry again. I gave it to your brother. He’s dragging it through the realms like a dog with its favorite bone.”

Thor snorts.

“You banished him,” Thor guesses.

“For the time being. It’s keeping him busy.”

Thor nods.

“He lied to you again,” Heimdall says, smiling. “He did not kill your father.”

Thor’s eyes go wide at this and he sits up too fast, then starts to black out. Heimdall gently lowers him back down.

“He’s hidden on his bed, asleep,” Heimdall continues, once Thor’s eyes have regained their focus.

“Will he wake?”

“I know not.”

“Why would Loki lie about it?” Thor murmurs. “And why did he not kill our father? I’ve never heard a more believable falsehood from him.”

“He will forever test your heart, sounding you to see whether your affections are a conditional thing, as they were with Odin, or if they are as limitless as his mother’s love.”

“Does he never tire of doubt?” Thor sighs.

When Thor is well, he borrows the crown and frees his father from Loki’s spells.

“Do you wish to keep it?” Heimdall asks, as Thor removes the ring of gold from his tired blond head.

“No,” Thor says. “Thank you. I quite like it hidden beneath your helm.”

Heimdall nods and Thor makes his way to his father’s bedside.

“What’s happened to your arm?” Odin asks, frowning.

“I had a… disagreement… with my brother,” is all Thor tells him.

Odin raises his eyebrows at this, but doesn’t press it. His fingers fuss idly with the furs.

“I’ve been foolish, have I not?” The king asks, quietly.

“A bit,” Thor smiles.

Odin resumes the throne.

Thor returns to Midgard to let his friends know that he’s alive. Stark fits him with a new arm. It’s nearly as strong as the old one, though not half as attractive or graceful. Thor is grateful to be able to use it to aid in Asgard’s repairs.

Odin seems desperate to mend what was broken and to see the realm healthy and whole again. He looks older every morning. Thor’s stomach turns over at the sight of his father’s gaunt face and sunken eyes. He begs the king to rest.

“There’s no point in that now,” Odin tells him.

The lines spreading across Odin’s face look like the bars of a cage.

When Thor brings his father a golden apple, Odin gently refuses.

“There’s nothing to keep me here. Nothing to fill the hole she left. I’m a relic far out of its time. You can make sense of these realms. I only muddle them.”

“I have much to learn,” Thor argues.

“So do I,” Odin laughs. “That is the one thing that never changes.”

Thor gives his father a tight smile.

“This realm will change,” Odin warns, eye sad - and something else. “I’ve woven too much of myself into it. And too much of magic. I’m sorry for the mess I’m likely to leave you. It will be a heavy inheritance.”

Heimdall will not send Loki to Midgard – no good ever comes of that. The trickster could cause trouble on Alfheim and Vanaheim, or at the very least, receive information that Heimdall does not wish him to have. Mulspelheim and Niflheim are too dangerous, tempting though they are. The way from Svartalfheim to Asgard is so simple it would take Loki a matter of minutes to make the flight.

When Loki returns from Helheim, Heimdall sends him to the tiny Jovian moon named for Loki’s Jotun mother. It takes Loki a moment to get his bearings, and when he finally does, his face reddens with fury. But there is no atmosphere, so he can’t scream. Heimdall reads his lips anyway and laughs at the creativity of Loki’s curses. Loki still has Thor’s arm, preserved with spells. Heimdall marvels at the preposterous and grotesque way in which Loki’s loyalty and affections have manifested themselves. A lock of hair is one thing.

There isn’t the faintest speck of Bifrost on Farbauti. And Loki has no interest in drifting through space to make his way to Midgard. He calls a shell of ice around himself and goes to sleep. Loki knows that if Heimdall truly wanted him dead, he’d be long gone. He’ll wait to see what the guardian intends for him.

Asgard does change when Odin dies. A wildness creeps into the realm. Forests grow dense and beasts get bigger. The Aesir must look more to their own safety than they ever did before.

But the greatest change preceded the Allfather’s passing. Frigga was the goddess of childbirth. Without her attendance, births are strained and dangerous, for the babies are big and labor is long. Thor tells his people that theirs is still a far better mortality rate than that which Midgardian’s face in their pregnancies. But the Aesir are hardly comforted. They are fearful of harming each other and Thor is fearful or harming his people. Thor’s effect is that of an aphrodisiac and augmenter of fertility. The elders fear that Thor will bring more pregnancies, and, with them, more deaths.

So Thor asks Sif to take the throne. He travels to Earth to aid his friends and soothe his citizens.

Thor is curious about the stories he’s always been told. Histories. Myths. He goes to Svartalfheim to take a piece from Malekith’s ship so that Stark can carbon date it. Around the wreckage he finds Midgardian grasses and wildflowers taking root. They were transplanted when the ship fell through the blurred border between the realms. Thor sprinkles the little blossoms with a bit of rain.

Stark dates the sample at two hundred and forty thousand years old, give or take. Far older than the Aesir. And still only a drop in the ocean.

Thor remains on Midgard for fifty blissful years. They end in the heartbreak he always knew was coming.

And, after that, Thor keeps to himself.

He tries to take after the best bits of his father. To take after his mother in her entirety. Learns to live in Loki’s sort of solitude.

Invents his own version of gardening.

Takes up beekeeping.

Ten thousand other things.

Keeps busy.

Lets the little things rely on him. Rabbits and flowers. Toads and sparrows.

The worlds are safer than they were. Loki slaughtered most of the most dangerous beings in the universe as he acquired the stones. A three hour seidr-fueled killing spree the likes of which the realms had never seen. Heimdall uses the crown to watch the events of that day again and again. Loki all but danced his way through the slaughter, and finished with nary a hair out of place. He has always been underestimated. His gifts were poorly understood. Often deemed flaws. Armed only with his own magic, he is formidable. Heimdall knows that if he lacked the crown, he could not match the trickster.

Midgard is, as ever, its own worst enemy. Its people wound each other often enough, but it is the wound they dealt to their realm that comes back to bite them.

The ice melts and the seas rise.

The military is given too much power.

Men are not kind as they move inland.

The rich continue to trample the poor, and the poor are great in number, so the casualties are high. But the wealthy don’t want their babies born into an unstable world, and the poor are too scattered, starving, and war-torn to support families.

The population plummets.

Thor brings all the rain he can to the deserts to make them hospitable, but much of the realm has been poisoned. Reactors have been flooded. Oil wells emptied. Bombs detonated.

Soon all of the earth is so toxic only female fetuses ever make it out of the womb. And that’s a pattern that can’t hold.

But Thor never takes up the crown to save them. Will not alter man’s path. He sends Rogers, Barnes, and Banner to Asgard. Earth’s orphans.

Midgard spins happily on without its men, and its health is soon better for their loss.

Alfheim, Vanaheim, and Jotunheim carry on as they ever have. Their inhabitants always lived in close harmony with their respective realms and show no signs of stopping. Asgard is learning how to do so afresh, though the Aesir are still largely unwilling to risk pregnancy. Thor wants to throttle them, but he knows that the fear of losing loved ones runs deep. He can’t blame them for shying from any road that might veer down that path.

Thor’s friends visit him as often as they’re able, but the wolf and bilgesnipe populations have increased on Asgard as the forests have grown wilder and harder to traverse, so The Warriors Four and Midgardians Three spend much of their time leading hunts. It’s more dangerous now, and therefore holds even more appeal for them.

Thor runs out of distractions thirty years later. He kept himself so busy for so long. It never occurred to him that the job could be done. He thought there would always be effort and his task would hold him over until the end of his days. He watches the stars spin through the sky and feels like he’s forgetting something, then wonders if it’s he who’s been forgotten.

Loki wakes to the sound of Heimdall chipping through the wall of the ice he’s been hibernating in on his lunar prison.

“What happened?” Loki croaks, squinting at the gold light that spills through the crack in his cocoon.

“Your brother needs you.”

“He lives?” Loki gasps.

Loki shatters his shell and stands in pool of his own hair. He’s shocked by the length of it. He put himself into near hibernation, but it seems the stuff didn’t cease to grow entirely. His fingernails curl back at him in grotesque arcs. He casts a spell to burn away these excess bits of himself and wrinkles his nose at the stink. His brother’s severed elbow is still linked with his own and Heimdall can’t entirely stifle a laugh at the sight. It slips out his nose as a puff of breath.

“He lives,” Heimdall confirms.

“Is he ill?”

“Something like it.”

“How long have I slept?” Loki asks.

“Four centuries.”

Heimdall sees Loki’s eyes watering and welling over while Loki’s features twist in fury.

“You robbed me of four hundred years?” Loki shouts.

“You were meant to lose four thousand, my fine fool.” Heimdall chides, though his voice is oddly patient. Almost amused.

“Thor has only thirty-five hundred years left to him? At best?” Loki whispers.

Heimdall says nothing.

“Where is he?” Loki snaps, but Heimdall can’t take Loki seriously with Thor’s thawing arm looped through his own.

“Give that to me,” Heimdall scolds, reaching for Thor’s poor limb.

Loki frowns but hands it over.

Heimdall shoves the center of Loki’s chest and sends him stumbling backward into an open portal.

2

 

When Loki lands, he finds Midgardian blooms blanketing the ground and plump rabbits eating them. A vast lake sparkles in the distance and a forest cuts a dark line across the horizon beyond it. Loki would swear that the sun looks a bit off, but he is the first to admit he’s reeling after four centuries of fitful sleep in his firm Jotun form. He’s glad not to need the stiff-limbed blue body any longer.

Loki is ravenous. He makes for the forest, hoping for venison, and studies the ground as he goes, looking for tracks and trying to get his bearings. He can hear birds hidden in trees. See branches swaying in the same wind that ruffles his hair. Smell clover and thistle.

Beyond the woods he sees the faint outline of mountaintops, hazy and blue, nearly invisible, hiding behind miles of atmosphere. The caps of snow all but disappear against the sky. They catch his eye again and again as he draws nearer to them. They’re growing more distinct as Loki’s steps devour the distance between them.

After two hours of travel, he stops to stare at the horizon. A shiver runs through him. He shakes his head and picks up his pace.

His mind drifts back to his brother holding him in those enormous arms, crying and screaming. He marvels at the ferocity of Thor’s love for him. The fierceness of that impossible heart, unbowed even as it was breaking. Remembers the view over Thor’s broad shoulders.

Loki looks up again and goes still, heart drumming in his ears.

The same silhouette stands before him now.

The jagged mountain range, so merciless and hard the last time he looked on it, now blunted with evergreens and veiled in the gentle haze of a humid atmosphere.

Svartalfheim, Loki boggles. In a thousand years the realm has never looked like this. Could never. In millions, maybe, but not a mere four centuries.

Loki sniffs the air and smells rain and earth. His skin prickles.

In the brush at the edge of the wood, he finds a single strand of hair snagged in a blackthorn. Long. Blond. He plucks it free and rolls it between his fingers. Holds the root to his nose and sniffs it as he would a rose.

Thor.

Loki grins and slips into a form with wings to better hunt his brother.

In Loki’s first dreams from within his little ice-prison, he chased his brother. He sprinted, knife held in his raised hand, as Thor fled before him. He spent a century trying to put a blade in Thor’s heart, but was never able to reach his brother’s front. Later, when he merely sought a fight - wanting to shout at Thor’s sweet face, his dreams never let him have it. And later still, when the goal of the dream had shifted to catching just one glimpse of Thor’s grin, the nightmare remained. The dream-Thor was true to his word; he would forever fly from his brother’s company. Loki would pursue, and Thor would elude. Loki would fail, and Thor would survive.

After nine days of flight, Loki sees a white square and a black circle on the ground between a river and a wood. A tent and a hearth. He dives with joy in his breast.

Thor sees him coming and sends wind to hold Loki back while he escapes with his hammer.

Thor is arguably the best hunter left in the realms. He understands how animals hide. The wheres and whys. If Thor has gone out to fetch your dinner, this is wonderful, for it means you won’t be waiting long. Thor is not fetching Loki’s dinner. Thor is using everything he’s learned to hide himself, and he has a whole realm in which to do it.

It’s a year before Loki finds another sign of his brother, but he can’t be certain if it’s from before or after he began looking for Thor.

After three years of fruitless searching, Loki swallows his pride and tips his head to the sky.

“Heimdall?” Loki breathes. “I can’t help him if I can’t find him.”

The Bifrost picks Loki up and tosses him down again.

He is beside a swift river at the base of a mountain. He sees nothing worth noting, but his nose is all he needs. He follows it straight through a wall of water. And there is Thor. Asleep behind the wet curtain of a small waterfall, stretched out on the stone floor of the tiny cave that’s hidden by the cataract. He’s wearing an artificial arm. Gold. Obvious even to Loki that it’s Stark’s handiwork. And Stark, though often foolish, was no fool; he knew Thor’s armor was silver. But he chose Loki’s color. Part of Loki tells himself that it could be because the color is a better match for Thor’s skin. But Loki can’t help but see himself referenced in the golden limb. He wonders if it’s meant to remind Thor of him. If it’s meant to remind Thor that Loki is the reason the original arm is missing.

Loki is still mulling it over when Thor bolts out of the cave.

Loki darts after him. He hears the hammer whiz past his ear as Thor calls it - to his left hand, now, then hears the whirr as Thor starts spinning her, making ready to take himself away again.

Loki screams, sending a chorus of No! echoing back at him from the stony hills. High pitched. Ear-piercing. Desperate. A bit pathetic.

The hammer slows until it’s swirling limply around Thor’s left wrist. He lowers his arm and slowly turns.

Loki’s mouth is slightly agape and he’s panting. Both men are soaked from their dash through the waterfall, hair plastered to their brows. Thor’s face is failing to hide his amusement at the sound his brother made.

“Shut up,” Loki says, and Thor laughs and shakes his head.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Thor teases.

And Loki can see Thor’s eyes roving over him, up and down and side to side, darting from feature to feature. They finally settle on Loki’s own gaze and smile tightly back at him.

“But I can’t watch you die again,” Thor reminds him, shaking his head to rouse himself. “I have to go.”

“No,” Loki yelps again, as Thor begins to turn, voice still sharp and panicked.

“I can’t survive it again,” Thor explains, stepping closer to soothe his brother with a soft squeeze to the shoulder from hard golden fingers.

“Instead you would throw away what little life we have left to us?” Loki gasps. “So that every day is a sort of death?”

“Every day will be life, Loki. That’s the point. If I never know where you are, then you’re as good as living.”

“No,” Loki chokes, frantically shaking his head. “It’s death without you. Everything, everywhere, all the time. And death is nothing. There will be no Valhalla to hold our happy souls, Thor. Not even the dull shame of Hel. We’ll have nothing, and soon. Time is having its way with us already. I see strands of silver hiding in your hair.”

“It’s creeping in at your temples, too,” Thor laments. “Taking you away from me. Letting me lose you again.”

“How is this not loss?” Loki breathes, eyes wide and pleading, hands gesturing at the air between them.

“How can it ever be anything else?” Thor counters.

Loki stands, unblinking for several seconds and then takes a slow breath.

“Give me your hand,” Loki says, flatly.

“What did you do with the last one I gave you?”

Loki pauses and his eyes widen slightly before he laughs. Thor’s humor still takes him by surprise. Chiseled features make for a fine poker face. Thor’s light hides his darkness with disturbing ease.

“Heimdall confiscated that one,” Loki confesses. “So I need another.”

Thor rolls his eyes and snorts, but sighs and offers up his only arm. Loki steps in close and takes it. Thor’s hand is deliciously hot in his own. Even the air near Thor is palpably warmer. Nothing like ice. Pulsing with life and loveliness. Loki pulls a knife and darts its tip into the meat of Thor’s left thumb, then sucks the blade clean and deals the same injury to his own digit. He puts Thor’s hand to his mouth while he presses his own thumb against Thor’s lips. When Thor’s mouth doesn’t open, Loki begins tapping it like he’s knocking on a door, painting Thor’s pout bright red. Thor narrows his eyes and parts his lips. They bite down on the flesh to wring the blood from the wounds and the taste of iron drips onto their tongues. It’s always the bright flavor of the sun to them. The glint of spears, swords, and skin on the plain of a battlefield.

This rite is usually more formal and solemn, with cups for the blood, and much ceremony and swearing of oaths. But that’s all for show. The seidr itself is simple. Blunt. Messy. Essential. Beautiful. Two lives bound; they can only be ended at the same instant.

When the wounds have clotted shut, the brothers finally drop their hands away.

“What are you doing here?” Thor says, after he’s sucked the last taste of Loki’s blood from the buds of his tongue.

“I came to ask that of you, though I can see some for myself. Godhood suits you, Thor. You’ve made a proper realm of this rock. It’s marvelous.”

“I’m not a god,” Thor murmurs, shaking his head and walking back to the river. He sets his bare bottom on the bank and dips his toes in the water. Stares at the tiny fish that come to investigate his flesh and are working up the courage to take toothless nips at his skin.

“What then?” Loki asks, gently.

“A gardener.”

“Pfff,” Loki snorts, and sits cross-legged by Thor’s side. “A god.”

“There are none.”

“Then was Mother not a goddess?” Loki asks, and Thor frowns. “Would you strip her of her title? Semantics, anyway. The result is the same. If you bear the gems you’re as good as a god. Better, I dare say. Where are you keeping the crown, by the way?”

“I don’t have it,” Thor says, one eyebrow wry on his face.

Loki pales and feels cold sweat run down his sides from under his arms.

“Did you destroy it?” Loki whispers, mouth gone dry.

“No.”

“Where is it?”

“Heimdall has it,” Thor answers, and Loki curses in relief and drops onto his back, feeling the soft carpet of moss beneath his skin. The texture is welcome after years adrift in the barren sky.

“Why are you not on Asgard?” Loki asks, sitting up again and scowling. “Or even Midgard for that matter?”

Thor fills his brother in on the last four centuries.

Loki groans, curses, and grumbles throughout Thor’s explanation.

Thor is most often silent as Loki follows him around his strange world. And Loki realizes that gardener is, indeed, the word for it. And perhaps shepherd. Loki looks on as Thor ushers newly hatched sea turtles across the dangerous expanse of sand that lies between their nest and the sea, sending strong winds to carry the gulls away until the tiny reptiles are hidden beneath the waves. He watches as Thor un-beaches daft whales. Sends rain where it's most wanted. Works thanklessly and ceaselessly. Watches as Thor watches him, their gazes both unwavering. Watches as Thor warms to him once more, punctuating their days with smiles and the affection of fingertips: eyelashes swept from cheeks, twigs teased from tangled hair, sleep wiped from the edges of eyes, and blades of grass brushed from a blushing backside. Sees it coming from a thousand years off when Thor leans over during a lazy day of sunbathing to kiss the corner of his mouth. And the top of his cheek. And the bend of his jaw.

Can see no sense in it when Thor goes no further and grows cold to him thereafter.

“You kissed me,” Loki argues, one week later. “Why are you angry?”

“It isn’t anger,” is all Thor says.

Loki endures a strange sad-eyed silence from his brother for three months.

They return to the first camp Loki spotted. The one with the tent that he and Thor used to use on hunts together in their youth. It’s full of every pelt Thor has tanned in his time on this remade realm. The whole floor is soft with stacked skins and the air within is rich with the musky-sour scent of leather and fur.

Loki wakes to nothing in the middle of their first night there. No quiet breathing from the other end of the tent. No warmth in the air. He can see Thor’s gold arm abandoned by the entry, glinting faintly in the moonlight that filters through the fabric of the tent. Thor always takes the arm off to sleep, but he’s never left it behind before.

Loki makes his way outside and scans the horizon, black against the deep blue of the night sky. He sees his brother silhouetted by the stars, sitting on a hilltop with his left arm wrapped around his knees. When Loki gets closer, he can see the shiny tracks on Thor’s cheeks.

“What’s happened?” Loki whispers, crouching at Thor’s side, sniffing for blood and sweat and other signs of distress and injury.

“The Tree is in its infancy,” Thor says, tipping his chin up to gesture at the sky. “For so long I thought we were as good as ageless,” Thor murmurs, shaking his head in disbelief. “Five thousand years felt like immortality.” Thor scoffs. “But Yggdrasil is nearly fourteen billion years old, and not likely to ever stop aging. Its growth may slow in a trillion years - or a hundred times that - but time will keep churning.”

Loki sits down beside his brother, hip to hip, tucking himself into the empty place at Thor’s right side and slipping his left arm around Thor’s waist. He hasn’t touched Thor’s body since they shared their blood; he’s only let Thor touch him. He’s been afraid to come too close. Worried that he’s already taken far more than his share. Afraid that, after all the injuries he’s dealt his brother, the contact could chase Thor away, much as a swiftly raised arm spooks a dog that’s been beaten.

“And our infancy is long over,” Loki says.

Thor nods.

“So we’ve no time to lose,” Loki offers, clenching as the cold dewy grass chills his formerly warm and dry backside.

“We’ve only time to lose,” Thor murmurs. “Midgard fell so fast. And Asgard is on its way… The Realm Eternal. Four centuries or four thousand, the end comes either way. We’ll be gone soon, and forever.”

“So is joy worth nothing if it’s fleeting?” Loki asks. “I thought scarcity increased the value of a thing.”

“All I can see anymore is the end,” Thor sighs. “Waiting over your shoulder. Loss, in every lovely thing I look at. Your breath and pulse, counting down your days. All our love turned to dust.”

Loki stares out at the moonlit false-Midgard. Thor’s sprawling Taj Mahal.

“As it did for you and Jane,” Loki whispers, and Thor nods his head in short swift bursts.

“Fifty years,” Thor chokes. “A heartbeat – you were right. I stopped sleeping so I wouldn’t miss any more than I had to.”

“Oh, Thor,” Loki breathes.

“I loved her much, and that made it hard… but I love you more still, so it can only be harder. I sleep all I can now,” Thor admits. “So I’ll have less of you to lose.”

“But you can’t lose me, anymore, remember? We’ll end together.”

“Aye, but you’ll end. And I can’t forgive the realms for the theft. The waste.”

Loki nods. He feels the same. A Tree without Thor in it is just dead wood that might as well be burned away.

“The more you have, the more Time will take away from you when you fall,” Loki concludes.

“Aye,” Thor affirms.

“I see,” Loki says, nodding slowly. “And so I’m to go unloved for all my days. Yggdrasil’s whipping boy. I’ll go hungry for The Tree’s gluttony.”

Loki can see Thor’s head turn toward him out of the corner of his eye. Loki meets his brother’s gaze, green eyes glinting in the starlight, wide and wet with feigned innocence and real fear.

“Would you leave my heart to starve, brother?” Loki whispers. “Are we to go empty to our graves? Must we surrender to Time? Wave white flags at the setting sun?”

Thor shakes his head no, and drops his forehead to rest against Loki’s brow.

“Would it not be wiser to follow Time’s example and swallow up everything our paths?” Loki breathes. “Meet our end so fat with life that Nidhogg himself would choke on us.”

Thor laughs and Loki kisses the tip of his nose. He rubs Thor’s ribs and stares up at the stars that drift imperceptibly apart.

“I will burn your name onto the bark of The Tree,” Loki breathes. “And carve this love into its heartwood.”

Thor dips his chin to kiss Loki’s shoulder.

“I will so delight you with today that you’ll forget about tomorrow,” Loki soothes, and Thor hums and smiles at the thought, for that has long been his conception of heaven; only Loki and Now.

“Come on,” Loki coaxes. “To bed with us.”

Thor nods and pats Loki’s back as best he can by nudging him twice with the meat of his shoulder. Loki can feel the zigzag of the scars against his skin.

 

3

 

Thor feels Loki’s long fingers close around the inside of his elbow, gently urging him forward in the dark. Cold fire blooms by the ceiling in the corners of the tent - the blue glow of will-o’-the-wisp at first, brightening into teal, then green, then gold. Thor curls up on the far edge of the pelt, leaving half of it empty in front of him. Loki nods his head in mute thanks for Thor’s silent invitation and takes the offered place, then tugs the fur over their bodies.

Loki feels a strange sort of poverty for the first time in his life. He’s naked in the bed of all he believes in. He’s brought no gifts to Thor’s realm. Only the clothes on his back, and he rarely wears those anymore. He has no offerings to make. No wine or honey for his god to deign to drink. No bread to break. No new blood to spill. He supposes he could soak his hair in the river and then use it to scrub Thor’s feet, but Thor would likely find that odd.

“Your lip is bleeding,” Thor says.

“Hmm?”

“You’ve been biting your lip so long it’s bleeding. Here,” Thor says, furrowing his brow slightly and setting the tip of his left index finger to his brother’s broken skin.

Loki waits and the sting melts away into warmth until all he can feel are the tiny ridges of Thor’s fingerprint against his lip. His mouth feels cold when Thor takes his hand away.

Thor sucks the dot of blood from his own fingertip. The sort of thing he would have done when they were boys. Possessive and protective. Welcoming and worried. His easy acceptance of his brother’s body is undiminished after all these years. Loki smiles and licks his newly healed skin. He sees Thor’s eyes dart down to follow the motion of his tongue.

It occurs to Loki that if his brother’s eyes are this hungry, the rest of him must be ravenous.

He’s been fasting for three hundred and fifty years at least, Loki’s mind supplies. No, not fasting; starving.

Loki’s right hand reaches across the tiny chasm between them and smooths Thor’s hair. Thor’s eyes fall closed for a moment as Loki’s palm glides down the back of his head. They open again when the hand leaves. Close again when the cool fingers thread through the hair at his temple and comb it back over his ear. Stay closed as Loki traces Thor’s brows and follows the tiny creases in the crepey skin of his eyelids. Open as Loki runs a fingertip down the bridge of the nose and pauses to wiggle the tip from side to side. Darken as Loki brushes the pad of his thumb across the fullness of Thor’s upper lip. Focus as Loki fits his thumb into the little divot just above the chin and then curls his fingers under Thor’s jaw to lead him closer. Loki leans in slowly to meet Thor half way. He can hear his curls dragging across the fur beneath his head, the sound silky in his ear. He can hear the wet pop of Thor’s lips as they part. Feel the hot breath that escapes from Thor’s lungs, like the ghost of a kiss against his lips. Loki keeps his mouth slack as he fits it to his brother’s, then gently sucks Thor’s upper lip, shaping the flesh to his own.

Thor’s lashes flutter and his nostrils flare. He slips his arm around Loki’s ribs and his long fingers splay between bony shoulder blades. Thor gathers his brother to his breast as easily as he would a babe. Their hearts thrum together between them as their lips clasp and pucker and grasp at tongues. Loki can feel Thor’s cock gliding up between their bellies, smooth and hard and long, growing more so every second. The head licks a wet trail along Loki’s stomach with the fluid leaking from the slit.

Loki’s own prick is busy painting a wet patch onto Thor’s hip, straining forward like a willful horse every time Thor sucks Loki’s tongue into his mouth or bites Loki’s neck. Dripping liberally when Thor’s moans buzz against his skin, sending sound waves shivering into his bones. Their limbs are already shaking from exhaustion, for they’ve been clinging to each other so tightly that their backs are bruised.

Now Thor’s fingers are cradling the back of Loki’s skull and pressing inward, crushing their mouths together in a desperate kiss. The edges of their lips sting from the stretch of their jaws, but to shut them and separate would be worse.

Loki slides his hand down Thor’s back. His palm skims the sweat from Thor’s skin and his fingers flow lower, following the full curves of Thor’s backside. Loki gives the left buttock a groping squeeze and then pulls Thor’s body closer. He does it again and makes a needy sound in the back of his throat. Thor can feel the high pitched whine ringing against his teeth. He nods slightly, shaking Loki’s head with his own, for their mouths are still pressed flush to let their tongues writhe together within. Thor shifts and curls his hips and Loki keens as their cocks glide together through a mess of dew and sweat. Loki moves in counterpoint to his brother, rocking his body down as Thor rocks up, and then they reverse.

The rhythm is soon swift, for they’re far too ravenous to linger. Time for that later. Now is for need. Their kisses dissolve into panting and whimpering. They chant each other’s names, both of them still wanting to keep some part of their brother on their tongue.

Thor’s pupils are so wide Loki can’t work out whether his brother is blind, or if he can see everything. His eyes are trained on Loki’s own, the one fixed point in the realms as they rut and grind against each other.

Loki’s face is bright with the blood in his veins, aglow with sex and sweat. Beaming with tension and relief all at once. He slots his third finger into the cleft of Thor’s ass and slides it through the sweat-soaked fur, finding Thor’s hole and petting it firmly. An affectionate tease. And effective. Thor’s head falls back and Loki can see the perfect arc of all the upper teeth. He sees Thor’s throat warp around a moan, the apple bobbing irresistibly before his lips. Loki licks the sweat from the knot of flesh as Thor’s semen pours out in waves between them.

And then Loki is gritting his teeth and spilling too, far before he means to. The gush of hot come against Thor’s cock makes him cry out again.

Their lips are once again free to kiss. They nip at each other’s mouths in between panted breaths. Thor’s hand plays idly between their hips, scooping up seed and painting it onto their pricks, teasing jolts of pleasure from tired skin. Their muscles slacken and their breathing slows until the brothers slump together and fall asleep.

Dawn comes and they ignore it.

Noon will not be denied. It leaves them hot and sticky. Ripe with the stink of semen. Thor flies them to a spring to bathe and wash their bedding. While they’re up in the air, Loki sees a perfect block of green on the ground below, not more than a mile from Thor’s tent.

When they return from their washing, Loki finds the footpath that leads from the camp to the geometric patch of grass. Thor follows at a leisurely pace.

At the end of the trail, they walk out onto a low lawn edged with red roses. A simple granite slab stands at the center beneath an apple tree. The only flora Loki has seen here that is not native to Midgard - the tree is one of Idunn’s. Loki sees the name at the top of the tombstone with the too-close-together dates. The three realms she set foot on – Midgard, Asgard, and Svartalfheim – are listed just below, with Latin beneath that.

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

“Did Idunn part with a sapling, or did you filch one?” Loki asks.

“Filched an apple when I left Asgard and then planted the seeds.”

Loki hums. It seems Frigga’s green thumb went to his brother. Loki supposes he should have seen that coming.

“Why did you not give Jane an apple?” Loki asks, quietly.

Thor is pruning roses. His hair is longer than it’s ever been, but he’s been shaving his beard every morning – a habit he adopted for Jane, because his whiskers hurt her skin. It makes Thor look even more like his mother.

“I offered,” Thor answers. “She said there was no way in hell she was eating one. Said she had watched me die once already and it had been more than enough. That it was my turn and she was glad to get the easy way out.”

Loki sits, blinking.

“How could she bear to leave you behind?” Loki breathes, not trying to hide how put out he is about it.

“Midgardians were made for mortality,” Thor shrugs. “They weren’t greedy with their lives.”

“Perhaps they should have been,” Loki mutters, and Thor tilts his head in a shrug of agreement.

Loki secretly likes the way that many Midgardians were greedy with each other’s bodies. That they often kept each other’s corpses like this instead of burning them away. He wishes he still had his mother’s molecules. Loki knows that there are no souls. There is no lasting part of a person. He must settle for other legacies. There are deeds. Evidence. A roudabout way to linger. The way Frigga’s features linger on Thor’s face. The way her love and patience wind through Thor like ivy. The way her gardens will bloom on Asgard for ages. The way the worlds are still turning.

Thor skips over a twenty foot section of the rose wall that clearly needs pruning.

“What lives in there?” Loki asks.

“Cardinals. Three chicks. Tiny. You’ll see the male along any minute. Can’t miss him.”

Thor’s prediction comes true moments later when a bright red bird bounces through the air and a chorus of hungry peeping erupts from the hedge.

“Was Jane angry about the arm?” Loki asks, as Thor’s gold arm glints in the sun and casts yellow reflections all over the garden.

“Aye,” Thor nods. “And the faked death. She said she was coming up with a clever way to kill you when Heimdall saved your skin.”

Loki knows better than to doubt it. Jane brought an end to Malekith; ending Loki would have been easy.

“Are you angry about the arm?”

Loki already knows Thor’s angry about the faked death.

“I was,” Thor admits.

“Did it hurt?”

“Not for long. The worst of it comes when there’s an itch with nowhere to scratch. And for the first month I kept calling Mjolnir to the stump.”

Loki frowns.

That night, Loki dreams that he’s replicating every wound he’s dealt to Thor on Frigga. That he slaps her with the Destroyer. Drops her from the sky. Sticks a knife in her side. Tears off her right arm. He wakes soaked in sweat as Thor breathes softly beside him.

“All right?” Thor whispers.

“Nightmare,” Loki says, and looks to his left to see the dark silhouette of his brother’s head against the white backdrop of the tent.

Thor rolls toward him and lays his hand over Loki’s heart.

“Beating like a bird’s,” Thor murmurs.

He kisses Loki’s shoulder and loops his arm around his waist.

Loki has no wish to return to dreams tonight. He lies awake and thinks of the stones.

When he first learned of their existence, he had taken them as evidence of something beyond all this messy matter - one of them is called Soul, after all. But, having held them, he knows they’re just rocks. Elements, with properties and particles like any other. Which means that they’re merely another part of nature, and all that can be done with them falls under the scope of the natural. Loki finds that very encouraging.

In prison, Frigga brought Loki books full of lore about the gems. When every tome she sent his way covered the same subject, Loki took it to mean he was meant to find stones. He’s fairly certain Frigga did not mean for him to rip Thor’s arm out of its socket. But she likely knew he’d do it nonetheless, and she brought him the books anyway. Her fearlessness unnerves him even now. Hers are the shoes he must strive to fill, dwarfing Odin’s a thousand times over. The task is daunting. And a bit exciting, too.

In the morning, Thor wanders through the brush gathering blueberries and kindling while Loki spears a fish from the stream with a blade of ice. Thor builds the fire to cook their breakfast as Loki guts the trout.

When the meal is finished, Loki looks to the sky and calls to the guardian. A beam of Bifrost snatches him up.

“What brings you to Asgard, trickster?” Heimdall asks.

“I’ve come for what’s mine.”

  


4

 

When Loki returns, he finds Thor flat on his back in the dirt. His body is completely covered in tiny yellow butterflies. Only his hair can be seen -  a corona framing the place where his face should be. The insects are drinking Thor’s sweat and tears and lazily mating with each other, resting in the middle of a migration that will take place over the course of several generations. Loki marvels at the way the children know to pick up where their parents left off.

"Poor mother,” Loki sighs, staring at the writhing mass of wings. “She couldn’t take us anywhere. If you stood in one place for more than ten minutes, an orgy would break out among the fauna. And I was forever filling my pockets with snakes and asking whether there were any witches worth a damn within whatever city we were visiting. She kept having to find polite ways to say no, for there were never any half as good as she was.”

Loki hears laughter deep in Thor’s chest. The butterflies aren’t bothered by it, and continue to breed and imbibe on their dewy blond oasis,

Thor heard Loki’s footsteps without the roar of the Bifrost preceding them. Mjolnir is growling. Thor knows what this means. Loki can hear it, too. He isn’t certain if he can hear the hammer because he’s wearing the crown, or because she wants him to hear her. He takes the circlet off of his head to check. Her angry voice remains. He sighs and puts the crown on again.

“You have the gems,” Thor says, and regrets it, because now the butterflies are rushing over to his open mouth so that they may sip his spit.

“Aye,” Loki answers. “And it seems Mjolnir hasn’t yet forgiven me for your arm,” Loki notes.

She hasn’t yet forgiven you for the Destroyer, Thor thinks, lips silenced by a flutter of skippers.

“I heard that,” Loki says, voice singsong and teasing.

Thor laughs again.

Anyone else in the realms would just pour some water on the ground and make mud pudding for the thirsty bugs. But Thor is hardly anyone else in the realms. The strange god will be awash in fragile insects for days. Loki will make use of the solitude.

Mjolnir is in the tent, on her own stack of skins. She looks perfect. Ageless. Not a single sign of wear. Loki feels like he’s seeing her for the first time. He had so feared that he was losing Thor to Jane, it never occurred to him that his brother already belonged to another. A battle lost billions of years before Loki was even born.

Loki curls his fingers around her handle and then curses. She will not move so much as an inch for him. Not even with the crown. Instead, he can hear her scolding him. And he can hear Thor chuckling to himself outside, amused by the endless squabbling between his best beloveds.

“You’re covered in butterfly spunk, Thor,” Loki calls, reminding his brother, trying to put him in his place a bit. He hears Thor humming in agreement.

When she’s done ringing his ears, the hammer has much to tell the trickster, for even with all their power, the infinity gems are far too young to give Loki more than half of the story. And it is the story. The oldest one. The only one. And the writing is all hers. For she was the source. That infinitely dense point. The singularity. The spark. The one that broke the stalemate between creation and annihilation. Forever tipped the scales in favor of something, and rendered nothing an impossibility. She waited thirteen billion seven hundred and ninety eight million years for Thor, biding her time and slipping from hand to hand, submitting to the grip of the unworthy in order to reel the thunder god in, bit by bit. Submitting to a handle to let his lovely little hand hold onto her. And he has been worth it. Better than anything she ever hoped for. But he will be hers for less than five thousand years. Her heartbreak at so cruel a fate leaves Loki gaping in horror as tears stream down his cheeks.A heartbeat indeed. Doomed to an eternity without Thor. Knowing he’s the only one she’ll ever love. Watching as time unravels every trace of him. As light, warmth, and life itself fade from the realms until any resemblance the universe bore to him has vanished and she is left to wish for a death that will never come.

Loki finally sees the magnitude of his brother’s place in the realms. He understands why Thor fits into them like a key and sits on their tongues like the answer. Because he is. And Loki is the oil that will loosen the rusty lock. All that Mjolnir scattered, she can gather again. But she needs Thor to ask her. Needs his will and hope and want. Needs his fragile little body to last long enough to see the end and shape the beginning. Mjolnir weighs nothing and goes nowhere. She is the pinion, shifting the realms and cracking them against her head at Thor’s pleasure. She will aid any hand that will bring her closer to Thor if he needs her - she answered Heimdall’s call to make sure that Thor made it to the healers before he bled out. And she will ignore Thor when he’s in need of a lesson, forcing him to earn her forgiveness.

Now it is Loki who needs her forgiveness. He is the only one who has come close to robbing her of her already-meager time with her mate. Twice now has he broken Thor’s body, and thrice Thor’s heart. Loki can sense the satisfaction she got at pinning him to the Bifrost like an ant. But there are ways Loki can make it up to her. Two wrongs he can right. And he was going to do them anyway, so it’s no skin off his nose. Mjolnir can’t even claim they were her idea: Loki has had Thor’s severed arm hooked in his left elbow throughout their conversation.

Thor doesn’t feel it until the butterflies begin to alight on his skin, mapping his right arm with the weightless touches of their tiny feet and tongues.

“Ah ah, Thor,” Loki warns. “Don’t squirm. You’ll squish your precious insects.”

Thor moans an ecstatic sound from beneath his cocoon of butterflies.

When the bugs depart three days later, Thor emerges from their wings, whole and symmetrical again.

His first act with his newly restored form is to wrap his brother up in his arms. Loki is so pleased with the gesture he completely forgets that Thor is covered in the semen, shit, and scales of ten thousand butterflies. When their skin sticks together slightly as they go to pull apart, Loki remembers and wrinkles his nose. Thor expects Loki to cleanse them with the crown, but instead Loki tosses it through the door to the tent and leads them to the river to wash.

“You thought I’d let the stones do the work?” Loki guesses, seeing the mild surprise on Thor’s face.

“Aye,” Thor admits. “But I’m glad that you didn’t. Bathing is a pleasure.”

“Precisely,” Loki smiles, slipping into the stream and watching the water rush over his brother’s lovely body, rinsing it clean.

"I’ve been chatting with your wife,” Loki says, scooping Thor up and cradling him like a maiden. The water is up to their armpits. Loki aims Thor’s toes upstream so that Thor’s hair is pulled up behind him, streaming over his head as if he’s falling from the sky.

“I heard you,” Thor answers.

“What say you?” Loki asks, softly. “Would you be willing to live long enough to see The Tree suspended in its death throes? The endless dusk?”

“With you at my side?” Thor asks. “Aye. I could bear anything to keep your heart beating. There’s no point in a thing if there’s no one to see it, and no meaning if there’s not another soul with whom to share it.”

“Mmmm,” Loki agrees. “I think Yggdrasil would be grateful to gaze on you as its limbs grew stiff. Graced with a glimpse of its former glory.”

“It would probably prefer a peek at your legs,” Thor says, and Loki snorts and pinches Thor’s thigh.

“And what say you to the rest?” Loki asks. “To the reflex and reversal. The return to pressure and heat. Rebirth by fire.”

“They are Mjolnir’s realms,” Thor says. “And that is her wish. We have the means. To refuse her would be a sort of surrender, I think. To let everything come to loss. To forfeit purpose.”

Loki hums and sways in the stream while Thor’s hair draws gold waves in the water.

“But where will we live?” Thor asks. “And what will we live on? It will be colder than Jotunheim.”

Loki tilts his head and grins down at his brother.

“I’m going to make the lie true,” Loki purrs.

“What lie?”

“That Svartalfheim and its people are older than time. That they came from the darkness before the realms.”

Thor smiles up at the sky and sees his future. His Valhalla. Eternity aboard an ark that bears Midgard’s innocents and Asgard’s gods.

Thor smiles again when they return to the tent.

Loki has been busy.

He’s built a cozy bower. Brought back the pillows and blankets from both their old rooms and made a bed that spans the entire back wall of the tent. In the front left corner, there are now a table and two chairs. A bottle of mead, two loaves of bread, and a crock of butter wait for them there. To the right, there’s a trunk that, when opened, contains whatever it is you were looking for. Mjolnir is beside it on her perch of pelts. Loki is speaking the language of birds. Giving his beloved helpful gifts to let him know that he’ll be safe here. Well cared for. Wildly loved. Warm and fed. And, thus satisfied, they’ll be free to surrender themselves to sex. To mate with each other and tend to their nest. And Loki will give Thor life instead of death. Grant the wish that he and Mjolnir share: Thor will live as long as his hammer, and Loki will live as long as his brother.

The bread and wine are wonderful on Thor’s tongue.

And the bed is bliss.

Thor hadn’t realized how much he missed sheets and pillows. The way they wrap so willingly around one’s skin feels like a kind of consciousness. A kindness. And the scent of goose down speaks of the universal comfort of being held to a breast, even when you sleep alone. But Thor is not alone, and he’s held to his brother’s breast. He’s kissing the last taste of wine from Loki’s lips with gentle nips to his red mouth and slow licks past his teeth. Loki keeps squeezing Thor’s right bicep, reassuring himself that it’s there. And Thor likes it. The sensation is oddly thrilling after so long without it. And the world feels so fresh to Thor’s fingertips. The subtle shifts in the texture of Loki’s skin hold his attention for many minutes. He runs his hand from the back of Loki’s neck to the curves of his backside again and again, feeling the way the taut slippery skin stretched over the spine melts away into the powdery softness of buttocks. He thrusts his fingers up through the silky jumble of curls that sway around Loki’s head, letting the strands glide across his skin. He grips Loki’s face in both hands and leads him into kisses, tipping Loki’s head this way and that in a bid to get closer to his brother. Sucks Loki’s tongue deep into his mouth and feels Loki’s moan trembling against his lips. Feels Loki’s erection dripping onto his belly as Loki looms over him like a raptor with its prey. Thor shivers at the thought of being devoured by his brother. Shivers again at the reality as Loki crawls down his body and swallows his cock. He can feel the texture of Loki’s tongue as it drags along the base and swirls around the folds of foreskin that bunch up at the head. Thor can feel the tip of that clever tongue wiggling its way into the slit, licking out the salty dew inside and making Thor writhe. He feels how tightly he’s being gripped by Loki’s lips as they slide up and down his shaft.

Loki’s fingertips are petting Thor’s hole, teasing and tracing it, pressing in gently on the swell of the perineum. Kneading and squeezing Thor’s behind as Thor spreads his legs ever wider to give his brother better access to all that sensitive flesh.

When Thor’s breathing begins to deepen, Loki pulls his lips away with a lewd  smack . A string of saliva briefly connects them to the head of Thor’s cock, but it breaks when Loki climbs out of the bed and crosses the tent to open the trunk.

Thor looks on, panting and frantic.

Loki comes back with a jar in his hand.

Thor nods rapidly.

“On your back?” Loki asks.

“Aye,” Thor says, still nodding, and lifts his knees.

Loki slicks up their cocks and scoops up more salve, then sets the jar on the floor and settles between Thor’s legs. He spends a long time kissing Thor’s thighs, dotting them with bruises and stamping them with the red rings of bites. Listening to his brother’s soft moans and whimpers. There’s a quiet oh when Loki kisses the seam of Thor’s scrotum. Loki hums as he kisses all the fuzzy wrinkled skin, tickling his brother’s balls with the buzzing of his lips.

When Loki kisses Thor’s entrance, Thor groans, and Loki can hear Mjolnir singing quietly in the corner. A low thrumming sound, like purring. Loki keeps kissing the tiny, tender spot, feeling the tension in it fading beneath his affections.

Thor shouts when Loki’s tongue drags slowly over his hole, then moans throughout the lapping Loki gives it. Loki’s mouth waters at his brother’s musky metallic taste. Blood and animal. Salt and skin. He kisses Thor’s opening as deeply as he did Thor’s lips.

“Loki, please,” Thor gasps, and Loki hums.

Loki places a gentle parting kiss on the wrinkled bloom of pink, then coats it with the slick that’s been waiting on his fingertips, gently pushing oil into the fluttering tunnel of muscle to the tune of Thor’s groans.

Thor’s cock is red. Full to bursting. The pool of fluid on Thor’s belly is enormous, and Loki can’t resist licking it all up as he ascends his brother’s body. It makes Thor think of his butterflies.

Thor can taste every inch of his own sex in Loki’s kisses. To find something so familiar on the skin of another is the most comforting shock Thor can imagine. He sucks his tastes from Loki’s lips and tongue until he finds his brother beneath them again.

The pitch of Mjolnir’s song is higher now, and Loki can hear rain dappling the roof of their tent.

"Loki,” Thor urges, and Loki nods and sets the head of his cock to the center of Thor’s hole.

Thor bites his lip as Loki finally presses in, parting Thor’s tender flesh with the hot length of his cock and pushing the air from Thor’s lungs as they both moan.

Their eyes have gone black with lust. Their cheeks, necks, and chests are flushed and shining, luminous with sex. Loki is poised on the precipice of orgasm. The bright tremor of release is painted down his spine and pooling in his belly, priming his sex to spill its seed deep in Thor’s body.

Loki drops his forehead to rest it against his brother’s and Thor wraps Loki up in arms and legs. They breathe against each other’s lips until they’re sure they’ll be able to last more than a minute, then Loki nods and Thor hums and they resume. Loki rocks his hips in a long arc, letting Thor feel every inch of his cock. He pulls all the way out and then guides himself back in, giving Thor the joy of the stretch with every pass and taking the pleasure of the squeeze with every press. Loki’s balls are already drawing up against the root of his prick. Thor’s ass is so hot and tight it’s as if it’s trying to suck the seed from his cock. Loki reaches down between their bellies to tug Thor’s length, feeling Thor’s ass clench around him when he glides his thumb over the head. Thor’s breathing changes again, so Loki leaves off, teasing Thor’s nipple now instead. Thor hums and gropes Loki’s ass in gratitude, then gasps as Loki begins to shimmy his hips in a short rhythm, rubbing the head of his cock over the knob of Thor’s prostate again and again.

Thor feels like he’s on fire from his belly to his feet. He whimpers an endless Mmmmmm  and clings to Loki with hands that twitch and shake.

Mjolnir’s song has changed again. It makes Loki think of a soprano beneath the sea. A high pitched bubbling. A scream while drowning.

Loki offers her his free hand as his hips drive into Thor and he feels the realms lurch toward the hammer until his fingers reach her handle.

Thor screams and streams of semen spatter Loki’s stomach.

Thor’s eyes are glowing. The tent darkens when he blinks. The air is electric. Their hair is floating around them like dandelion fluff. Thor is still hard. He can feel Loki’s hand on Mjolnir’s handle. Feel Mjolnir purring her pleasure into pale skin. Pleasure because she can feel Thor. Feel his body through his brother’s. Feel his pulse beating against Loki’s skin. Feel the muscles inside him fluttering around Loki’s cock. His sweat. His trembling. His love. His joy.

She can finally see all that Thor sees. Just cause for the passion and pride. Can see why Thor always goes to so much trouble for his pretty idiot of a brother: the fool is clever. Loki is the first one in nearly fourteen billion years who has fully understood her. Who sees right through her. And she understands Loki too, for the same thing runs through their cores: the need to possess their bright-eyed god until they’ve been blended into one being. To have his perfection in the realms forever. To feel his love.

And Loki isn’t wearing the crown right now – he didn’t have to cheat to know her mind – the gems are forgotten on the floor beside a jar of slick. Loki knew what song she sang. The same tune carried by his own heart for so long. She took Loki’s offered hand without a second thought, seeing only the means to her end: the path of least resistance between herself and her love. Her stubborn love, whose heart was calling to her but whose hands were holding onto his brother, for Thor was fearful of jealousy. He had his lips shut tight around her name.

And she weighs nothing in Loki’s hand, but now the realms feel so heavy. Loki can’t keep them all aloft much longer.

“Hold her,” Loki urges, and Thor lifts his hands over his head. He takes her shaft in his right hand, rests her head on the palm of his left, and lets her pin his arms to the bed.

Loki slides his own arms beneath Thor’s shoulders to brace himself as he drives into Thor’s body, filling the air with the wet squelch of the slick that’s gathered where their skin meets. He gasps and whimpers as his orgasm swells inside him, filling his belly with a boiling pleasure. It ends in a shout as he spills into Thor while more of Thor’s seed pulses out between their bellies. For a split-second, Loki’s fuck-drunk mind thought he’d just come so hard it was his own seed pouring out of Thor’s prick. His sober mind smiles at the thought.

Loki falls asleep for almost an hour, lulled by his brother’s breathing and the hammer’s sated humming.

When they wake, they peel themselves apart and then stagger outside to wash, staring up at the stars and seeing rabbits darting around in the darkness.

In the tent, Loki pulls two dressing gowns out of the trunk and offers one to Thor.

“Mother’s,” Thor says, and Loki nods.

Loki chose two with wide arms, so that they’d fit from the waist up. The hems still end halfway down the brothers’ shins, but they aren’t bothered. They sip chocolate and share a pear poached in wine before they head back to the bed. Loki reaches to remove Mjolnir from his pillow, but she won’t budge.

“Ungrateful harpy,” Loki chides.

Thor laughs softly and sets her above his own pillow.

“I thought you’d be bothered if I brought her to bed,” Thor explains.

His head is ducked slightly, still shy.

“You’re fucking your brother and wearing your mother’s dressing gown,” Loki sighs. “Holding the hammer is the closest you’ve come to normal all day.”

Thor blushes scarlet, but shakes with laughter.

They lay the dressing gowns across the foot of the bed and climb between the sheets, winding lazy limbs together and resting in comfortable quiet.

"I can still smell her in the silk,” Thor murmurs, lost in memories of his mother.

Loki hums, equally absorbed.

Thor was wildly in love with his mother when he was young. His body had its own sense of sex, though his mind lacked the hows and whys. And his heart had its greed and jealousy. He found it unfair that his father got to have Frigga by his side and all to himself every night. Thor didn’t get to have her to himself all day in exchange - lessons and meals left him barely enough time to play with his brother. He was lucky if he got to sit by his mother during supper. The injustice of it gnawed at him.

Whenever Thor couldn’t take it any longer, he’d lie on his belly and beg Frigga to tickle him instead of telling him a bedtime story. And she knew what he was after, though he only half understood it himself. And she knew that indulging her son would do no harm. So she’d stretch out beside him in bed and he’d slip off his shirt. She’d let the lightest brushes of her fingertips swirl unpredictably over his bare skin, tatting some strange lace of touches. And he’d hum and shiver and try to fight off sleep as her nails danced up and down his spine. Most often he’d lose and wake alone in the morning with the blankets tucked around him. But, if he was lucky, Frigga would be the one to fall asleep, lulled by the slow fanning of his eyelashes and the scent of someone wholly hers. And then she was his queen. Safe and happy while he watched over her. And he’d inch toward her like some sidewinding caterpillar - careful not to disturb the smooth arm that was still slung over his back – until they were nose to nose. And then he’d settle in and set his lips against hers, so that they’d stay pressed together even after he was asleep, because he had long ago noticed that the more people love each other, the longer their kisses linger.

And this was what he pictured whenever he heard the word lovers - a boy with no shirt and a girl in a gown, breathing together in bed with their heads on one pillow and a kiss on their lips.

Loki would always come to Frigga in the mornings, rising early and slipping into her room after Odin had left her. She’d be waiting in her dressing gown. He’d help her take her hair out of the braids she wore while she slept. And he’d tell her his dreams in all the detail he could muster and then she’d tell him what they meant. And then they’d begin their lessons. First, it was learning to make light. Once that was mastered, they moved onto increasingly elaborate illusions. Then healing, and that was a fright, for Frigga cut her own flesh to give him something to practice on, but she soothed him with kisses and laughter and reminded him that she was a shieldmaiden and this was no more than a scratch. Satisfied by her smiles,  Loki bent over her bleeding fingertip and set to work. Shapeshifting came next. First with potions, and then, much later, without. When Loki had finally mastered it, he slipped into her room wearing Fandral’s form and waggled his eyebrows at her. She fell over laughing and took Loki down with her.

“Tell me he hasn’t tried it,” Loki panted, on his back on the floor.

“If he does, he’ll get the same reception,” Frigga said, and set them laughing again.

And then, one day, there was nothing left for her to teach. Loki rose early that morning anyway, dressed a bit more carefully than he ordinarily would have, and made his way to his mother’s room. She was waiting for him with her hair still in up braids. And he took out her plaits and told her his dreams, though she had long ceased to tell him the meanings of the things, not because she didn’t know, but because she knew all too well.

“I thought we might walk through the gardens,” Loki said, and she smiled and took his arm.

Loki had always loved that. One of the brightest moments of his long life was the day he was finally tall enough that she could take his arm without having to stoop. Nothing ever made him feel more like a man than to have the queen of Asgard on his arm. They wound their way through the flowerbeds and hedges, dancing and laughing, and he bathed in her light just like the blossoms did, opening and brightening under her eyes.

He wishes he could summon those mornings from his enchanted trunk. Summon the weight of her braids in his hands. The warmth of her kisses when she said hello, or  goodbye, or congratulated him.

As she got older, he’d often catch her still asleep, and he’d stretch out beside her and wait for her to wake.

“Is this what we’re doing today?” he’d tease, when she finally began to stir. Most often, she’d pinch him, but every now and again, she’d sigh and say, “I think so,” and they’d spend the day dozing in her bed.

Thor can feel his brother’s breath coming in short, strained puffs. See tears sliding sideways down Loki’s face to soak the pillow.

“All right?” Thor asks, gently.

“I slept four hundred years,” Loki murmurs. “The loss is still fresh.”

Thor nods and hugs his brother close, stroking Loki’s hair and kissing his temple.

“What shall we do tomorrow?” Loki whispers.

“Spend the day in bed,” Thor says, and Loki sobs a laugh.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

  


5

 

Thor shares the grief he withheld four centuries ago.

The brothers spend nine days and nights quaking and howling together in bed, soaking each other’s shoulders with tears.

On the tenth morning, they finally rise and break their fast with a few wild fruits, but neither of them has much of an appetite. They bathe and comb the knots from their hair, then sit on the bank and watch the river flow over their toes for the rest of the day. At dusk they return to the tent and wind their bodies together in bed.

They sleep for two days.

Thor is trying to extricate himself from his brother’s limbs when Loki wakes.

“There’s an elephant due,” Thor explains, and Loki grunts and puts on the crown to see what Thor’s talking about.

“Do you want to fly with Mjolnir or the stones?” Loki asks.

“Mjolnir, if you don’t mind,” Thor says. “It will cheer me… and wake me up.”

Loki nods and they step outside. Loki climbs onto his brother’s back, wrapping his legs around Thor’s waist and his arms around Thor’s neck.

“Ready?” Thor asks, and Loki nods against Thor’s neck.

The hammer leads them, leaving the great broken barrier of sound booming in their wake.

The herd is quite familiar with Thor. Loki is learning his brother’s habits in reverse: seeing the fruits of Thor’s labors and extrapolating the actions that brought them about.

The swollen cow is in labor. Thor is drawn like a bear to honey. The beast is visibly pleased to see him, reaching for him with that improbable nose, petting and squeezing him. Smelling Loki all over him and sniffing the air to catch Loki’s scent there, too.

Loki has already seen Thor with the giraffes. Loki asked why Thor was always attending their births, as the creatures managed well enough alone on Midgard. Thor said a six foot drop to hard dirt was an unacceptable way to come into the world. It made him feel like a bad host. So he catches the babes as often as their mothers will let him. “How often is that?” Loki asked, and Thor thought about it a moment. “I’m sure I’ve missed a few,” Thor admitted. “Can’t be everywhere at once. But I haven’t encountered any objections as of yet.”

Loki watches as the enormous elephant babe slips out into his brother’s waiting arms. Thor sets her down gently. He pulls away membranes and cuts the cord. Stretches limbs that are stiff and clumsy from being curled up into a ball for the better part of two years. Receives the messy affections of the mother with tears of gratitude in his own eyes.

The brothers sit and watch for three days as the babe learns to walk. She is forever tripping over her trunk.

After that, they follow the herd on foot for a week and watch the way the creatures remake the realm to suit their own devices. Digging down into the earth until they hit water so that they may drink and bathe. Uprooting trees to eat the roots. Dispersing seeds over great distances as they distribute them with their dung.

Thor explains that the creatures live in a matriarchy, and have a lifespan of seventy years. That they remember their dead and revisit their bones.

“I suppose you already know all of this, though,” Thor murmurs, looking up at the crown on Loki’s head.

“It’s more real to me for having seen it and heard it from your lips,” Loki answers.

“You’ve been wearing it for over a week,” Thor notes. “Is something wrong?”

“No more than usual,” Loki murmurs. “I’m looking for something. Waiting for it.”

To see Loki in the crown is a strange thing. Not for the crown itself, as it is an elegant object, and constant. But it renders Loki inconstant. His body shifts with his mind. If he is low and missing his mother - for mourning hasn’t yet left his heart – he looks as he did the day he lost her: face white and eyes red, hair long and unkempt, bare foot bloodied. If he is at peace, he looks as he did at eight hundred years of age: rosy cheeked and dewy, with short hair curling out of the careful order he’d combed it into.

When they finally return to their tent, Thor finds that his own head is closer to its ceiling. When he looks down over his body it is noticeably broader. His muscles are as big as they were when he spent all his days sparring and training. He’s surprised he hasn’t been tripping over himself.

Thor pulls a small mirror from the trunk to see how Loki envisions his face.

It’s much as Thor expects. It is the visage that took Loki out of the dungeons. The one that wept for his false death. The one that first made love to him. But the grey hair has gone from Thor’s head, though his beard remains. Thor had always assumed Loki disliked his beard.

“I don’t dislike your beard,” Loki says, softly, slipping in behind his brother and circling Thor’s waist with cool arms. “Nor do I dislike your bare face. I’m torn between the two. Without it, you look more like her, but with it, you look more like you.”

Thor puts the mirror away and turns toward brother.

“And they both feel delicious against my skin,” Loki breathes, and stands up on his tiptoes for kisses.

Loki’s hair is short today, falling around his face in spirals and arcs that bounce gently as Thor scoops his brother up and carries him to bed. Loki drops the crown by the bedside so that Thor can run his fingers through his hair. They’ll be locked in these slightly-strange bodies until Loki takes up the crown again. Possibly longer. Thor isn’t bothered. Loki only ever looks lovely.

And Loki loves this. To have Thor hovering over him with those shoulders. To feel the drag of blond whiskers over his jaw and throat. To be sheltered by the storm. To feel small and inconsequential after the boundless power of the stones. To remember what fragility is, and enjoy the gentleness it necessitates.

“I think it’s just past my pillow,” Loki murmurs, when Thor starts hunting around for the oil.

Thor reaches and finds that his brother is right. He opens the jar and coats their skin in slow broad strokes, using a firm grip on Loki’s cock and watching his face all the while. Green eyes are looking up at Thor through languid lids and long lashes. A sharp red mouth is panting lightly. Thor can feel the steamy little puffs of Loki’s breath lapping at his lips.

Thor pushes oil inside himself and then slowly sinks onto Loki’s cock, feeling his entrance stretch and sting as the fullness of the head passes through, then gliding down on the sleek silk of the shaft. When he’s fully seated, Thor goes still and stays there, letting their bodies savor the heat and the joining. Letting their kisses dictate the motions of their hips. Loki’s cock will bob and buck inside Thor’s body when Thor sucks on Loki’s throat. When Loki licks into Thor’s mouth, Thor’s hips will curl and his prick will leak onto Loki’s belly.

They linger in sighs and trade slow kisses for several hours, sating their hands with caresses and letting their lips drink their fill of nips and presses. When Loki feels dew dripping down his sides he slips his hand between their bellies and finds still more of the stuff pooling in his navel.

“Thor,” Loki teases, “Even elves don’t get this wet.”

“They’re not the rain,” Thor whispers, and bites Loki’s left ear lobe, then sucks it to soothe it.

“Sit up and let me look at you,” Loki pants, helping with the task by pushing in on Thor’s nipples.

Loki props his head and shoulders up with pillows so that he can relax and enjoy the view.

Thor’s cock is swaying over Loki’s belly, shifting with Thor’s breaths, and a steady stream of clear sticky liquid is dripping from the tip of his prick. Loki swirls his fingers through the mess and then sets them to his lips, slowly licking them clean while he stares at his brother’s flushed face.

Thor’s own eyes are riveted to the pink tip of Loki’s tongue. Watching as it deftly laps at Loki’s slim fingertips.

Both of their cock’s leap at the sights.

And the sounds.

The little pops and smacks of Loki’s tongue. The gulp as he swallows. The breaths shuddering from Thor’s lungs as his breast heaves. The quiet moans as he begins to move above Loki’s hips. The wet drumming of Thor’s cock on the soaked skin of Loki’s stomach. The suck and slop of the oil on Loki’s prick as it’s pressed between their flesh. The high noises that get caught in the back of Loki’s throat as Thor falls and rises faster. The groans and growls that pass Thor’s lips when all four of their hands converge on his cock and balls, stroking and groping together.

Thor comes for a count of thirty.

Loki knows because he’s counting. He cranes his neck and stretches his jaw wide to catch the ropes of semen that fall near his face. The rest of it streaks his breast and his belly and he swipes lazy fingers through the mess and then offers them to Thor, who sucks and licks them clean like a cat bathing a kitten.

And then Thor starts bouncing again, holding Loki’s hands and building to the swift pace that Loki likes. Loki’s grip on Thor’s fingers grows tighter with every pass of Thor’s hips. Loki writhes and arches on the sheets, stiffening and lifting Thor higher on the saddle of his hips. He shouts and bucks when he comes and Thor hums a sated sound as semen floods his body and seeps back out over his buttocks and thighs.

Afterward, they’re almost too lazy to move. They stagger out to the stream, sink to the bottom, and let the current rinse them clean. Then they crawl to the shore and fall asleep on the bank until sunrise. The light makes them wince. They flee like bats into a cave, escaping to their tent and climbing into bed. Thor stretches out on his back. Loki stretches out on his brother.

In the morning, Loki puts on the crown. He’s preoccupied until noon, at which point he says, “Stay here,” and then vanishes.

Thor shrugs his eyebrows and gets back in bed.

When Thor wakes, there is a very pregnant young woman lying beside him.

“Hello,” Thor says, after a beat.

“My lord,” she pants, and bows her head low.

“This is Dagny,” Loki says, gesturing to the lady. “And this is Tait,” he continues, inclining his head to the shyly smiling young man to his left.

“Please,” Thor says, gesturing to the chairs in the corner. “Take a seat, Tait. You look a bit pale for my liking. Your wife needs you well.”

Thor sits up and looks at the young woman. Very young. And very small. Dagny is slightly smaller than Jane was. Tait is Loki’s size.

“You see my concern,” Loki says.

“Aye,” Thor answers.

Her frame is small and the baby is big. This is where Asgard has run into trouble of late. For all their advancement, the Aesir are reluctant to resort to surgery where birth is concerned, believing it to be unnatural. Thor finds this absurd. His people are perfectly happy to be cut to ribbons by the edge of a sword in battle and see nothing unnatural in that, but when a healer wants to take a scalpel to healthy flesh, they balk, even when it’s meant to save their lives.

Loki can get the baby out without a scalpel, if need be, and that’s only if he’s wrong about his brother, which is unlikely.

"Do you wish for my aid in this, sister?” Thor asks.

“Please,” she answers, nodding and smiling through a grimace.

“May I?” Thor asks, reaching for her, and she nods again.

Thor lays his hands low on her belly to feel her contractions.

“And may I look?” Thor asks.

“Aye, anything, please, I’m in your keeping,” she tells him.

He helps her out of her dress and hands it off to her husband, who folds it carefully and lays it in his lap. Thor props Dagny’s back up with pillows and crouches between her knees to see how far along she is.

With the crown, Loki can sense a strange joy spreading through his brother at the sight of this woman’s bared body. He’ll be asking Thor about that later. He’d rather not have a row in front of their guests.

“I’d like you to walk with me for a while, if you’re willing,” Thor says, rising, and Dagny whimpers, but takes his offered arm and they slowly exit the tent.

Tait begins to follow, but Loki motions him back down into his seat.

“She’s going to fall under his spell for a bit,” Loki warns. “And it will aid her in this, so we’ll not interfere. It will pass once she’s held the babe to her breast.”

“Then, they’ll both be well?” Tait asks.

“Aye,” Loki sighs. “One way or another.”

The young man smiles and weeps. A pretty and jolly thing. Loki has been watching him. Not an unkind bone in his body. Or his wife’s. Loki can hear her laughing with Thor out by the river. When they return, the young woman looks far more relaxed.

Loki’s guess is on the mark. Something in his brother renders the heart glad and the flesh willing. Loki chews the inside of his cheek and clamps his hands between his knees as he sits and watches, willing himself to be silent and still, though he wants to shriek and smash things for Thor’s attention. But Dagny has every last bit of it and is basking in it. And Thor is equally absorbed. He brings her water and wipes her brow. Helps her shift her position when she grows achy and uncomfortable. Rubs her back and belly. Tracks her contractions in his head. Braids her hair back away from her face. Helps her stretch and rest. Sets his ear to her abdomen and hears two hearts beating.

Now Thor is kneeling at the end of the bed and telling her not to push. She’s groaning at him, tossing her head down on the pillow in frustration as Thor begs her to just breathe.

“Would you rather stretch, or rip?” Thor asks, chiding her gently.

“Stretch,” she sighs, defeated.

“Then you’d best breathe,” he teases, and she shoves him with her foot.

Thor laughs as he grabs her ankle and bites her toes, then holds her legs up so that she can relax.

“Breathe,” he soothes, and rests her calves on his shoulders while he rubs her hips and kneads her thighs.

She smiles at the ceiling and lets the air shudder from her lungs.

Loki tastes blood where he’s chewed through his cheek. He looks to Tait to see if jealousy is devouring him, too. But the lad is smiling still. Looking back and forth between his tiny wife and her enormous healer. When Loki bends his mind to Tait’s thoughts, he finds nothing but happiness there: in his good fortune, in his wife’s health, in the safety of their baby, and even in the joyful blond god bent between her legs. Loki frowns briefly, then opts to follow Thor’s advice and simply breathe.

Every half hour, Thor carefully parts her flesh to peek inside.

After the eighth look, he comes up grinning.

“You’re there,” he says. “Take my hands and brace your feet on my shoulders. When the next wave comes, try to push three times.”

Dagny nods and sets herself up. Loki empties her bowels and bladder with seidr to spare her the indignity of doing it inadvertently. He’s always found it terribly unfair that mothers must endure the embarrassment of shitting in front of strangers when they’re busy bringing new beings into the realms.

Loki can see a hazy glow surrounding the figures on the bed. Like the light he used to see around his mother sometimes when she was teaching him how to heal. He can hear Mjolnir humming softly in the corner. Hear Thor coaching and praising his tiny patient. See his strength pouring into her where their skin meets, like a faint blue flame.

When Thor has the baby in his hands, Loki comes to deliver the placenta while Thor shows Dagny how to nurse and then ushers Tait over to meet his daughter, clapping him on the back and embracing him.

Tait takes Thor’s face in both hands and kisses him full on the mouth, crying again.

Loki wonders what Asgard makes of its true king these days. The god they sent away, strange and fay and fading into myth. A brother to hug and kiss, it would seem. One could do worse, Loki supposes.

And Thor lost interest in rank and birthright ages ago, so he isn’t bothered. It occurs to Loki that this is likely the first sense of belonging Thor has shared with the people of his native realm in nearly four hundred years. He suspects Thor has missed it. He’ll have to give Thor his fill now, for much of their future will be spent with only each other for company. Loki looks forward to it. For Thor, it will be harder. He’ll need a stockpile of memories and goodwill to get him through the long drought.

“Rest here a while, if you would,” Loki says. “And, when you’re settled, I’ll send you home. You’re hungry, I think, my dear?”

Dagny’s eyes widen as she realizes he’s right.

“I could eat a whole stag,” she admits, laughing.

Loki goes to the chest and takes out a plate piled with roasted meats and roots for the ravenous new mother.

“Call for me if you feel unwell. If you want anything, you’ll find it in that trunk,” Loki tells them, and he and Thor leave to let the new family adjust and recover in the privacy of the tent.

Thor is still beaming. Glowing. It’s just a bit harder to see it when he’s out in the sun.

“What pleased you so when you first saw her in her skin?” Loki asks, once they’re out of earshot of their guests.

Thor raises his eyebrows.

“Could you not trace the history of the thought?” Thor asks, eying the crown.

“I’ll have you know I do try not to pry too much with these,” Loki says, jerking his gaze up at the gems on his head. “Would you have me do otherwise?”

“Peace,” Thor laughs, taking Loki’s arm and tugging him closer as they walk along the river. “I’m teasing.”

“Well?” Loki says.

“Fur.”

“What?”

“Fur,” Thor says again, and Loki’s face twists in confusion. “On her shins, under her arms, and between her legs,” Thor clarifies.

“That’s what had you so happy?” Loki asks, incredulous.

“Aye.”

“Why?” Loki boggles. “What of it?”

“I haven’t seen any on a woman in ages. I never saw it on Midgard. Every time a lady raised her arm while riding on the underground I’d hope to see a bit of hair. In fifty years, I only crossed paths with six who hadn’t shaved it off.”

“You jest.”

“I wish I did,” Thor laughs.

“But the men didn’t shave,” Loki says, remembering Barton. “So it wasn’t for lice. What purpose did it serve?”

“I’ve no idea,” Thor sighs. “Fashion, I suppose. Taste. Business, really: tell them they have a problem and make them pay you for the solution. But it was uglier than that. The realm had the most relentless hatred for women - their minds and bodies both. It was incomprehensible. Images of them everywhere, but always the same: shaped like Gungnir and no hair below the neck. The impossible ideal. Not idols, but indictments, forever showing them what they were not; never praising them for what they were.”

“But fur is sex and softness,” Loki murmurs, shaking his head. “And it holds onto scent.”

“Aye,” Thor huffs. “And they hated that, too. Told women that they reeked.”

“Then… did they not like sex?”

“They thought they did, but most of them were wrong.”

Loki looks perfectly perplexed - eyes squinting, lip curled, nose wrinkled, and and brow rumpled.

“They made themselves ashamed of everything,” Thor sighs. “Felt some flaw at still being animals underneath it all.”

“Well, they fixed that,” Loki breezes. “Now they’re minerals.”

Thor elbows his brother.

“Would Dagny have died if you’d left her on Asgard?” Thor asks.

“Aye. And the baby, too.”

“Thank you for bringing her.”

"Dagny prayed to Mother. I couldn’t resist.”

“Did you ease the birth with the crown, or a spell?”

“Neither,” Loki says, stopping them beneath a willow and sitting down in its shade. “It was you.”

“I gave her strength,” Thor says, dropping down beside his brother.

“Aye, that you gave with purpose, and it aided her greatly. But there are parts of you that go pouring out into the realms all day unwitting, much as your scent does. You know you bring want and readiness to those about you. Willingness. It makes sense that your gift extends to its own inevitable end.”

“What do you mean? What is it?” Thor asks, and Loki smiles and pushes Thor’s hair behind his ear.

“Not really what, but whom,” Loki murmurs, tracing Thor’s cheek. “For so long I fell for the mathematics of men. Believed the lie that a baby is equal parts father and mother. The child is the sum, but not of two halves. Odin gave Frigga one half of one cell. She made the rest of you herself, of her own blood and bones. You’re the goddess of childbirth, brother.”

Thor stares at Loki’s smiling eyes. They’re lit by the sunlight that’s reflecting off the river, making them twinkle and flash with the water’s rippling. Thor has long thought of his brother as being the one to resemble their mother. The grace. The quiet. The teasing. The cunning. The secrets. The flirtation. The fearlessness.

Now Thor feels like he’s seeing his own face for the first time. Looking at a map and realizing he’s been holding it upside down all his life. Trying to match Odin and be the Allfather. But that’s the role Sif was born to play. Thor had long stood in her way, and neither of them had noticed. She is every inch a king. And a wiser and more patient one than any of her predecessors. Thor wonders if Loki saw it all along, or sensed it. If that’s part of what fueled his rage: that Thor was running so fast down the wrong path, away from all that Loki held most dear, barreling instead into bluster, belligerence, and blindness. Breaking both their hearts in the process.

“Hush your head,” Loki soothes, rubbing his brother’s back. “She got us here in the end.”

“Mjolnir,” Thor says.

“Mother,” Loki corrects. “The Norns wove you and Sif side by side. They wanted all that strength for Asgard. But Frigga’s vision stretched farther than Skuld’s. Her sight was not bound by Asgard’s lifespan. She overwrote their work. Found their weaving and broidered my life onto yours. Try as they might, the Norns could not undo it. Mother’s stitches were too strong.”

“I always thought our stubbornness came from Odin,” Thor laughs. “But it’s merely more of Mother’s handiwork.”

Loki grins and they listen to the river gurgling until the sun sinks low enough to peek under the willow’s branches.

“Come on,” Loki sighs, taking Thor’s hand and hauling him to his feet. “I know you want to gawk and paw at that baby.”

  


6

 

At night Thor likes to watch the stars. The debris from Svartalfheim's shattered second moon – obliterated by an asteroid almost a billion years ago – still lies scattered in the realm's orbit, so meteor showers are frequent and intense.

“The first birds that you brought knew the stars had gone wrong,” Loki murmurs, as they lie on their backs staring up at the sky.

Thor hums and smiles to himself at the thought of Loki using the infinity gems to investigate the observational skills of long-dead birds.

“I kept looking for Castor and Pollux,” Thor admits.

Loki tilts his head to his left to look at Thor's own constellation.

Loki noticed it the first time he sneaked into his brother's bed in the dead of night after a bad dream. He thought he was seeing things. Then he worried that some strange seidr was attacking Thor as he slept. Thor thought Loki was either dreaming or teasing him, and paid no mind, until Loki dragged Thor into Frigga's room the next morning. Loki took a hand mirror from her vanity and insisted that they all pile into one of her wardrobes, sliding her long gowns aside, shutting them in, and then waiting for their eyes to adjust to the darkness.

“There,” Loki said, and poked the mirror against Thor's chest until Thor's hands came up to take it.

It was just as Loki said: a ring composed of tiny points of faint blue light was perched atop Thor's head.

“Mother?” Thor said, and his voice was the smallest it had been since he found it. “Am I cursed?”

“No,” Frigga laughed, gently. “You're merely meant for the stars, sweetheart. This is just their way of laying claim to you. Does it hurt you or keep you awake?”

“No,” Thor admitted. “How long have I had it?”

“You were born with it. It was there when I went to listen to your breathing the first night in your crib.”

“Mama, he won't be able to hide in the dark,” Loki realized.

“I'll have to stand and fight,” Thor said, and Loki grabbed his brother and nodded miserably into Thor's shoulder.

“That may be so, but not for centuries,” Frigga soothed. “I'm the only one who'll hunt you down in the darkness, and the worst I'll do is pinch your bottom.”

She made good on her threat and then scooped the boys up in her arms, knocked the wardrobe doors open with her knee, and tossed her sons down on her bed before curling up beside them to let them catch up on the sleep they lost to Loki's dream and Thor's stars.

Thor gets up off his back and stands at Loki's feet with his right hand offered, waiting to help Loki up.

Loki keeps looking up at the sky over Thor's head. The crown of stars is all but invisible under these circumstances, unless Thor moves, and then the constellations above him seem to edit themselves, as though they're scrambling to meet with Thor's approval.

Once you know they're there, you can't un-see them. It looks like the universe was conceived in Thor's mind. Loki wonders if it's a prophecy that he had previously lacked the key to interpret. Thor never sees himself like this, so there was no hope of him stumbling onto the answer. Thor rarely sees himself at all. Two days ago, Thor stuck his face into some fragrant blooming thing when Loki wasn't looking and came away with bright yellow pollen all over the tip of his nose. Loki watched the pretty powder all day. Some was shed by the wind. Some by the tapping of Thor's feet against the ground. But the bulk of it remained until they bathed before bed. Loki realized that Thor never looks in mirrors anymore. Loki does so constantly: checking to see what's stuck in his teeth and then wondering how long the damned thing's been there and whether or not his brother noticed; checking to see if his hair looks flattering; checking to see what he looks like in general because when he wears the crown he tends to alter himself inadvertently.

Loki leans up and reaches for Thor's offered hand. They both flex their elbows to haul Loki up to his feet. Then they link arms and amble off to their tent to settle in to sleep.

Two days later, Thor smears a bit of ash on his cheek as he freshens the fire in order to cook the perch he caught for their supper. Loki licks his thumb and wipes the charcoal stain away while Thor smiles and huffs a little laugh at the way his brother mothers him.

A week after that, Loki brings a young lady in labor for Thor to see smoothly through to birth, but first Loki must remove sap and spruce needles from Thor's hair with a sigh and a surreptitious bit of seidr.

That night, the brothers lie side by side in a bed that still bears the scent of childbirth. It makes Thor happy on a biological level, and Loki isn't bothered because he's glad to smell like anything that might please his sibling. If the strange amniotic perfume had been available in bottles back on Asgard, Loki would have been wearing it over a thousand years ago.

On nights like this, Thor all but fucks Loki through the mattress. And, afterward, once Loki's hips have recovered enough get his knees back together and to hold his weight up over them, Thor rolls onto his back so that Loki may return the favor.

Tonight is no different.

When they've had their fill, they fall asleep in a sticky, sated heap. Thor drifts off into dreams of chubby babies. Loki runs his fingers through the stars above Thor's head while his own mind unspools until he's a boy again, still in bed beside his brother, wondering how much a crown of stars weighs and whether or not it's warm.

Thor has no plans for the following day, so he practices an unofficial sort of falconry - walking through a meadow to stir up voles and field mice for the family of kestrels he's fallen in love with. Their chicks go to bed with very full bellies whenever Thor does his wandering.

He comes back with dandelion fluff in his hair and all down his back.

After nightfall, Thor lies in bed while Loki sits up reading. The light from Loki's seidr lamps makes the skin of Thor's closed eyelids glow a dull orange and keeps him at the edge of sleep. After an hour, he hears Loki's light footfalls on the skins that cover the floor, but the warm weight that settles behind him is too great. He rolls over, expecting to find that Loki has just hauled an enormous old book into bed with them, but it's Thor's own face that greets him.

“What is this?” the twin Thors say.

“My brother,” Loki answers, and perches at the foot of the bed with one leg drawn up under him and the other dangling over the edge. He watches two matched sets of nostrils flare.

“Brother is singular,” the Thors growl, before climbing one after the other from the bed and striding out of the tent into the darkness.

Loki straightens the crown on his head, then sighs and sits there, staring at Thor's hammer, while two sets of footsteps are slowly swallowed up by the soft grass, the sigh of the breeze, and the singing of crickets.

He hasn't angered Thor in almost a century. So long that the once-familiar has now grown foreign. And frightening. Loki's limbs are shaking faintly and his stomach seems to be spinning.

Half an hour passes before Loki gets up to retrieve his brother. When he looks west, he can see the flicker of a storm out over the sea. Too far away for even his keen ears to catch the thunder. Thor is even courteous in his anger these days. Loki can't make up his mind whether it's a sign of self control or self denial.

Loki follows the footpath to the clearing in the center of the wood. It's nearly too dark to see the trail on the ground beneath his toes, but, if he looks up, he can see the stars overhead in the gap between the branches, lighting the way to their keeper.

The lawn is wet with dew when Loki reaches it. In the center of the garden stands the gravestone, same as ever, crisp and shining faintly in the starlight. The rock is unworn by weather because Thor only lets rain fall on it when it needs to be washed. Two crowns of stars glow faintly from behind the granite, giving the Thors away.

Loki remembers Thor as a child, concealed in Frigga's skirts during a game of hide-and-seek. Thor clung to her knee as he stood on her foot and then swung through the palace with the queen and her maids while Loki checked every cupboard and closet in vain.

Loki makes his way around the grave and kneels in the grass before his brother.

“Do you still think me so selfish?” the Thors ask.

“No,” Loki answers, gently, and with a fond sort of surprise. “Indeed, I find you devoid of even the barest sense of self-preservation. Narcissism never enters into it.”

“He is not the one I love,” the Thors echo.

“I know it,” Loki sighs. “And that's the trouble.”

“I don't hate myself,” the blonds argue.

“So, you're indifferent?” Loki offers, and there's a pause.

“Aye.”

“And what would you say if I said I felt the same way about myself?”

“That you're a fool,” the Thors huff, instantly, in unison. Then they sigh, frowning. Loki hears their skulls thunk on the headstone as they both sag back against it. “Is it not enough that you love me?” the Thors say, softly, and Loki smiles.

“Not for me, no. I would have you know my mind in this. I would have us in agreement.”

“And do you love yourself, Loki?” they ask, audibly worried that the answer will be no.

Loki rises and doubles himself and four blue eyes go wide.

The Lokis link their elbows where they stand side by side in starlight.

“I do,” they say, and smile. “Come with us,” they whisper, wiggling long fingers as they each offer an arm to help their brother up.

The Thors take a deep breath and then accept the extended hands.

In the tent, the Lokis seat the Thors together at the table and then pour a bit of water onto their blond heads, working it through with combs and then humming a duet as they go about the business of putting a dozen braids apiece into the damp locks beneath their fingers. And then it's to bed, with the Lokis in the middle and the Thors at the edges where they won't have to worry about each other too much. Still, the Thors lie awake wondering which one of them is the real one – and how they could possibly prove it - until they're ordered to Stop thinking and go to bloody sleep by their giggling brother.

The robins begin their singing before sunrise, waking Thor as they always do. But, today, each Thor keeps his eyes shut tight and waits for sleep to take him back under, eager to be spared a few more hours of too-keen awareness of himself.

When they wake again, the light filtering through the fabric walls of the tent is too bright to ignore. The Thors each tip their heads up and peer at each other over their brothers' sleeping temples. And then, inevitably, their eyes drift apart so that they can look at Loki from an angle to which they haven't previously had access. The sight before each of them is nearly the same: Loki is curled into Thor's chest, with one thigh wedged between his brother's. Thor's thick arm is draped over the trickster's thin ribs and his fingers are cupping a pale shoulder. Loki's face is tucked into Thor's throat, hiding his eyes from the light and letting him breathe in the warmth that radiates from Thor's skin. Every muscle in Loki's body is slack. He's relaxed and defenseless. Thor has known for a long time that Loki trusts him, but he's never seen it quite so clearly before. Loki's body is unarmed and unconscious, sheltered by his brother.

The Thors look up at each other again but soon drop their heads back down onto the pillows: they find it impossible to take each other seriously with a dozen rumpled braids running amok in their hair.

It's nearly noon when there's a stereo hum and a stiffening stretch from the body in each Thor's arms. Then comes the customary goodmorning kiss and cuddle, followed by the protest - I don't want to get out of bed. Then Thor's answer – You don't have to. And then, as if on cue, as it always does, each Loki's stomach squeaks and gurgles. The men all huff a little laugh and file out of bed.

Before breakfast, one of the Lokis makes the table larger while the other pulls four dressing gowns out of the chest. The Thors can't settle on which one of their brothers to watch, and their heads turn this way and that until, finally, they all shrug on the robes and sit down to a mountain of fresh fruit and sweet rolls. It's always easier for Thor to focus when his brother is wearing clothes.

When they've eaten their fill, the Lokis rise and set their hands on their brothers' shoulders, silently instructing them to remain seated as they spin to stand behind the tousled blond heads and take out all the braids. Each Thor closes his eyes to better feel the graceful fingers threading through his hair, shaking out the plaits, and arranging the kinked strands. When the cool digits are finished, the sets of brothers separate, and the blonds are positioned with their backs to each other.

The Lokis orchestrate their motions and confer with each other through efficient glances and nods of their heads.

First, one Thor is turned to look at the back of his own head, and then the other.

The hair at the temples has been teased up a bit and then loosely gathered at the back of the crown, where it zigs and zags its way down into the rest of Thor's mane, which falls well past his shoulders these days.

“I look so like her,” the Thors whisper, stunned.

“Of course you do,” the Lokis soothe. “You're too tall to look like him. Too slim. Too fair. Too feminine. Marvelous, isn't it?”

The Thors turn to look at each other from this impossible angle again. It takes three rounds of well-mannered After yous and Sorrys before they manage to coordinate staring at the backs of each other's heads.

It's like walking up behind Frigga before she had dressed for the day on those mornings when Thor would intercept her maid and bring his mother her breakfast by himself. Her hair would be full of fresh waves from the braids she had slept in, and her shoulders would be draped in the same embroidered silks that the brothers are wearing now. Thor's hair has darkened as he's gotten older, just as Frigga's did. When Thor was a small boy, she had shown him a plait that had been cut from her head when she was a child. When they stood in front of a mirror and she held the braid to his head, it seemed to disappear completely, camouflaged amid an identical blond. Century after century, it was the same: her hair at his age was always a matching shade.

Satisfied by the faint smiles that hover at their brothers' lips, the Lokis nod their heads at each other and the nearest one bends to take up the crown. And then there is only one Thor and only one Loki. Loki has always been a showman. He knows it's best to leave the audience wanting more.

Now that he's been restored to one form, Thor discovers that he has the memories of both versions of himself. The thoughts that went through their heads are fluid and familiar to him. He's quiet the rest of the day, but his features are smooth. Loki counts it as a victory.

In the morning, Thor drags Loki out into the ocean to watch a blue whale being born. Thor never tires of seeing their sleek bodies and their plump pale calves. Loki never tires of the grin that splits his brother's face at the sight of these fluid marine births.

The brothers stay with the pair until the sun gets low, watching the calf nurse. They boggle a bit at the thought of delivering a baby so big and then producing milk rich enough – and plentiful enough – to make it even bigger. When Thor first took Loki on tours of this realm, he introduced these animals as his favorite species. Loki wrinkled his nose, shook his head, and said, “You're mispronouncing it. Here, repeat after me: Thoroughbreds.” Thor snorted and waved his brother off. “Arabians?” Loki tried, instead. “Clydesdales? Elk? Impala? Gazelles? Peacocks? Golden pheasants? Caracals?” Now, nearly a hundred years later, Loki's sensibilities are finally catching up to his brother's.

After supper, Loki puts on the crown and the doubles appear again.

Eye contact is a little easier for Thor this time. He knows both of the men are still himself. All the memories will be his own when the twin bodies are blended back together. And Loki isn't mocking him. Won't hate him for this later.

“Call her,” the latest Loki says, to the newest Thor.

Thor falters for a moment, thinking of his mother, before he lands on Loki's meaning. Then he holds out his hand and the hammer answers.

“Now you,” Loki says, inclining his head to the first Thor.

Again Mjolnir obeys.

In each case, Thor finds it strange to see himself with the hammer. To be confronted with her acceptance of him. It's also odd to simultaneously see her in his hand and know his hand is empty, for there is still only one Mjolnir.

Loki takes off the crown and leads his brother toward their doubles. Thor reaches to trace the runes on the hammer's head as his twin holds her.

All four men jump at the prolonged ping that Mjolnir makes when she's touched by two Thors at once.

When their ears stop ringing, the Lokis laugh.

“You two in the middle with your wife,” they say, each of them urging a Thor toward the bed with thin fingers splayed on broad backs. “I'm not eager to hear the song she'd sing if I interrupted her fun.”

The Thors settle in the center of the mattress, one with his left hand on Mjolnir's handle, and the other with his right. The edges of their palms can't help but press together. Harmless. Familiar. Like hefting a heavy sword – or a reluctant hammer - with both hands, though with only half the sensation.

Each Loki tucks himself under a heavy arm and then traces patterns on his brother's chest as they all drift off to sleep on the melody sung by an incomparably happy hammer.

When they pile out of bed for breakfast, Mjolnir goes completely silent.

Eight eyes go wide, then four shut with laughter.

“He has to eat,” each Loki chides, still giggling softly, eyes wet with amusement. “And here I thought I was greedy and fickle. Honestly, Thor, how have you put up with her this long?”

The Thors pinch their brothers' pert bottoms and then one of the Lokis puts on the crown to render the sets of men singular again.

It's nearly a week before Loki doubles them. This time, when he does so, he leaves them to their own devices. One Loki grabs a bow, dons a grey cape, and then dips to pass through the flap of the tent as he heads out to a favorite hunting ground, his thin shadow even longer in the low afternoon sun. The other Loki lies down for a nap.

In each of the blond heads, an identical train of thought sets forth.

If we separate, we'll have two very different days, gotten in the span of one. Efficient. But we have an eternity, so there's no need to be efficient. If that Loki didn't want to go hunting he could've pulled his supper from his enchanted chest. And he likes to hunt alone lately. ThisLoki is in bed, which is where we'd rather be. And he knows it, of course, damn him. Cheeky shit. Still. A bird in hand.

Loki waits in the bed and listens to the feet that aren't departing the tent. He hears the two sets of footsteps that approach the little stack of pelts where Mjolnir sleeps. Hears the tiny pop made by two matching pairs of lips as they press kisses onto uru. Hears the hammer burst into song. Loki doesn't have to try to hide his smile – the curled curtain of his hair is obscuring his face. He's at the far edge of the bed, facing the wall of the tent. Thor won't be able to use his brother's body as a shield between his selves. So one Thor lies down in the middle, curled on his left side like his brother, and reaches to rub the smooth planes of the pale back in front of him. And, after a beat, the second Thor curls up behind the first. He leaves a bit more space between their bodies. Nearly a foot. He watches his own shoulders shift as he rubs Loki's neck. And Thor can't un-see how much like his mother he looks from this angle. His mind drifts back to those nights when he'd beg to have Frigga's fingers skating up and down his spine. On warm days like this one he always wanted it even more, for the tickling of her touches made his skin pull up in goosebumps and tricked him into feeling cooler.

Thor reaches forward and traces the bones of his own back to return the favor. He's scrubbed them – albeit awkwardly, given the angle - tens of thousands of times in the bath, so he thinks he knows what to expect. But the skin is finer than his fingertips anticipate. Akin to the smooth curves of flesh that span the undersides of his forearms. And his touches are instinctively tender, because his muscles are running on a century's worth of memories of the way he strokes Loki's spine – indeed, the way his second self is caressing Loki now.

“What started all this?” the Thors whisper.

It takes Loki a moment to withdraw from his reverie and run the words back through his mind.

“You've been neglecting yourself a bit. Wandering about with ash on your cheeks and twigs in your hair.”

“Eccentric, I'll grant you, but it sounds harmless.”

“It might be,” Loki admits. “I hope it is. But I'd rather err on the side of caution for once. Anyway, it's natural to want what's best for the ones we love, is it not?”

“Of course,” the Thors soothe, and Loki nods.

“It's all Mjolnir's fault, really.”

“Oh?”

“Mmm,” Loki confirms. “She gave the evidence. It's a fact, Thor. Objective. Indisputable. You are the most worthy being in all the realms. Therefore the most worthy of love, and the one with love most worthy to bestow. That you give it to me is, in hindsight, entirely absurd.”

“Loki-”

“Shhh. You know I've no scruple in taking it. Still. You didn't really have the option. You couldn't give it to yourself, trapped within one skin. And you've only ever looked in mirrors when you've been in doubt, so you've never seen what I see – what she sees.”

Over his shoulder, Loki hears the soft breathing of two sets of lungs. Outside the tent, it's quiet. Still too early for the trilling of toads. The leaves and grasses are all lush with summer, and whisper only faintly as they flutter in the breeze.

The hand rubbing Loki's back takes up its task with renewed interest as its owner attempts to press on in his sweet stubborn silence rather than worrying about something as intangible as his own worth.

“You deserve yourself,” Loki whispers, blocking Thor's way with his words.

“I want you.”

“And you have me,” Loki sighs. “That's not changing. I want you to have more. Someone worthy.”

“You are worthy.”

“Someone more worthy,” Loki amends. “The most worthy, in fact.”

“You bear the gems and keep us breathing-”

“Anyone can wear the crown,” Loki objects, shaking his head on the pillow and tickling Thor's nose with his curls.

“Not just anyone could have made it,” the Thors counter.

“Not anyone, but several, and I'd call none of us good.”

“Don't speak of yourself so. You wield the crown well. Mjolnir approves, since you're so obsessed with her opinion. What further proof do you need?”

“I cannot lift her.”

“You did.”

“That had nothing to do with me.”

“She likes you,” the Thors soothe.

Loki merely shrugs under Thor's hand, muscles still pliant and happy.

“It's not the same.”

“Couldn't it just be physics?” the Thors try, and their desperation is audible even to their own ears – voice pitching higher, just as it did in childhood - but they soldier on all the same. “A bit of uru in me, perhaps? A type of magnetism. Something solid and rational with a logical explan-”

“Thor, please,” Loki snorts, shaking with laughter. “She wanted you, she waited for you, she weighed you, and she found you worthy.”

The bodies behind Loki both heave a deep sigh and then go silent for many minutes.

“What could I possibly say to myself? Or give? Or do?”

“That's a question only you hold the answer to, love,” Loki tells them. “That's why it's so important. I can't find it for you.”

  


7

 

At dusk, there are footsteps in the grass outside. Through the weave of the tent, its three occupants can see the blue-green burst of cold fire as the Loki who left to go hunting casts a spell to cook their supper. The crackle of the kindling catching gives way to the long hisses and deep pops of larger logs being consumed by flames. Then the scent of roasting duck wafts through the walls and lures the trio of layabouts from their nest.

“Been busy?” the hunter teases, and Loki flips himself the bird.

“Rubbing backs is hard work,” the Thors yawn, standing up on their tiptoes and stretching their ribs toward the sky as their long limbs protest at being cooped up all day.

When Loki puts the crown on later that night, he puts himself together again, but leaves the separate Thors as they are. If they ask, he'll mend them. But they don't. Instead, he sees them set their jaws and nod faintly in unison, unwilling to forfeit and fail this test.

In the cool darkness before dawn, Loki wakes with a worry that won't let him sleep. Not for lack of trying. He syncs his breaths with the deep, slow puffs of air that thread through his hair as they pour from Thor's lungs, but the rhythm doesn't soothe him enough to dispel the thought.

“Are you only putting up with this to please me?” Loki asks.

He's on the far side of the bed again, forcing his brother to lie beside himself. The nearest Thor wakes first and then rouses the farther one by reaching down to lightly squeeze the arm he wrapped around his own waist as they were sleeping – Thor's arms are long in the habit of holding someone while he sleeps.

“What?” Thor breathes. Only the closest blond responds, though Loki can see that both of his brothers are awake and watching him. The silent one props himself up on his elbow and leans over the speaker, listening.

“Are you only putting up with this to please me?” Loki asks, again, and the Thor's both relax and sag back into the bed.

Thor has decided that the version of himself that's closest to Loki will be the one to speak unless called upon specifically.

“I don't wish to displease you,” Thor says, and he feels Loki stiffen in his embrace. “But that's not the reason,” he finishes, and Loki relaxes a bit. “You said you love yourself, and that's exactly as I wish it. To expect it of you while I neglect it in myself is an injustice. And, anyway, I hate solipsism. I shall know your mind as you do mine.”

“Good,” Loki says, and rolls over to huddle against Thor's front for the remainder of the evening.

In the morning, Thor sees his other sleeping self holding onto his brother and thinks of the impossible gift of a sibling. Cynics would call theman heir and a spare, but Thor knows better. His parents gave him an equal. A complement. Someone to fill in his gaps. To stand by his side. A family that would outlast them, knowing full well they'd have to leave their boys behind.

They have centuries of shared jokes. A history of memories that are recalled simultaneously under the right circumstances, causing the brothers to lock eyes, utter the most relevant word in unison, and then dip their heads to muffle their laughter against their breasts. They have a comfort with each other's bodies and habits that comes from knowing them as long as they've known their own. A fondness for each other's foibles because the weak spots give them something to protect and mend.

Watching the strange ageless siblings adrift in each other's arms, Thor realizes Loki was right: this is what the two of them are for.  They are an us. A we. A two that's really one.

For me, there is only him.

Having had that thought, Thor is obliged to have its sister.

For him, there is only me.

It strikes him as woefully inadequate. He racks his brain to come up with someone who would be both willing and able to love his brother half as well as he does. But there is no one else in all the realms capable of loving Loki properly. So Thor is forced to see himself as something frightfully rare and essential - and, therefore, terribly precious.

As the tent grows brighter and color creeps back into the world, Thor is confronted with still more treasure, hidden in plain sight. He sees the blond waves in front of his face and his heart begins to race with the realization that he is all that remains of his mother. Loki has her lessons. Her spells. Her craft. But her blood lives only in Thor's veins. Her features cling to his face as her hair does to his head. The color of her skin clothes his bones. Her patient nature delves its fingers deeper into him with every day that passes, shaking Odin's temper out of him like so much dust.

He inches forward to curl up close behind himself and loop his arm around his waist again.

After breakfast, Thor has Loki render him whole for a moment so that he's able to share his thoughts with himself, then he nods and Loki doubles him again.

And now Thor knows that the way his beard poked the back of his neck when he held himself was unpleasant. He shaved for Jane, knowing his beard would be miserable for her. He's almost surprised Loki puts up with it, except that the brushes of his whiskers leave pink scuffs on Loki's fair skin, and Loki does tend to appreciate it when Thor puts marks on him. But Thor has plenty of other means of placing scrapes and bruises on his brother, so the Thors pull straight razors, brushes, and soap from Loki's trunk, and then shave themselves barefaced. Loki grabs a long thin spear from where it's propped up in the corner, sets goodbye-kisses to two baby-smooth cheeks, and ducks out of the tent to go fishing.

Each Thor stands, staring at himself, and sees the same face that would hover behind Jane as she brushed her teeth, combing and drying her hair for her, trying to save her time as she got ready for work in the morning since she was always running late. The lateness she blamed on Thor, and he was the first to admit that it was exactly half his fault.

On the mossy bank of the stream where he waits, motionless, stalking fish, Loki hears his brother sobbing. And he knows Thor isn't weeping for their mother, because that's a grief they still share when it takes them. So Thor mourns Jane. The choice – and the inevitable loss - that Loki cannot understand and never will. He was glad to be barred from those years. Relieved to be spared half a century of seeing Thor love someone else. Lucky to sleep through both his own heartbreak and his brother's. But he knows Thor was also wildly happy during those days, and that's something Loki cannot overlook, no matter how much he'd like to.

Loki always saw Thor's love for Jane as a betrayal, and Thor always knew it. And perhaps it was. But the heart wants what it wants. And Thor had learned the hard way that the future is, at best, uncertain, and that he had to cling to love whenever life would let him, because tomorrow might never come. So he did. And now he has a hole inside himself that he can't mend, and wouldn't wish to, because it's all his body really has left of her. Love needs an object; grief will settle for memory. But to dwell on those memories while he's in his brother's company strikes Thor as another sort of betrayal - and a folly: to stare over your shoulder at sadness while joy is standing right in front of you. It would be a waste somehow, Thor's certain of it.

But now Thor's grief can remain within the bounds of himself as he mourns, so he does. The doubles fall to their knees, drop their foreheads together, and heave great aching sobs until their throats, ribs, and bellies have gone tight with cramps. Because there are still mornings when Thor expects the body in his arms to be small and soft and female. When he expects the hair tickling his nose to be honey brown and scented with coconut. When he expects the face before his own to be papery and wrinkled. When he remembers Malekith's ship tumbling down toward him and sees Jane throwing her body over his own like a shield because he was too damn heavy and it was the best she could do. When he remembers the twinkle in her big brown eyes every time she wanted to do something spectacularly illegal – and the dazzling grin when, inevitably, he would agree to it. When he expects the hair tickling his nose to be silver and cropped short like a pixie's – but still coconut-scented.

And he realizes Jane found him worthy of sharing every year of life she had left to her, and she was no fool.

When Loki comes back, he finds the Thors curled toward each other in bed, hands held tight between their chests, knees and foreheads butted up against each other.

“All right, love?” Loki calls, gently, as he bends to pull a roasted capon out of the chest. “Anything you need?”

But each Thor only smiles and shakes his sleepy head.

Loki sets the table for supper and then pours two glasses of water and brings them over to the bed. He straightens the sheets that are tangled around four long legs while he listens to the gulping of two throats.

The Thors sag back into the pillows and pat the space between them.

“Tell me about your day,” they croak, so Loki climbs in between them and settles on his belly with his arms folded under his chin. Two warm bodies turn toward him and then rough hands trace his ribs with slim fingers.

“I went to the stream to fish for our supper,” Loki says. “Heard you weeping. Was too shaken to wield the spear.”

The Thor on Loki's right side settles in to hold him and press kisses to his shoulder while the brother on Loki's left props himself up on his elbow and clears his throat to speak.

“Just a bit of rain,” Thor soothes. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

“I'm sorry for your loss,” Loki whispers.

Thor drops his eyes and nods his head once before whispering his thanks.

Loki stares at Thor's eyelashes. They're gathered into thick pointed clumps where Thor's tears drew them together and then bound them with salt. His eyelids are red and puffy, and the skin is shiny from being stretched tight with the swelling. Loki's fingers turn blue and tiny columns of ice grow from their tips. He snaps them off and hands them to his brother.

“For your eyes,” Loki explains, and then rises to fetch robes for them to wear while they dine.

After supper Thor wants to go walking, so each of him takes one of Loki's arms and escorts him out into the damp night air. Loki expects that they'll be visiting Jane's grave, but Thor leads him to the stream instead and sends their dressing gowns fluttering to the ground with shrugs of his shoulders and brushes of his hands.

They let the gurgling of the water stand in for conversation while they wash the day's worries from their skin with chilly water. Afterward, Loki floats on his back, flanked by his brother, who helps to keep him afloat with pats to his backside.

“Do you smell strawberries, too, or am I dreaming?” the Thors whisper.

“They run all along the west bank,” Loki answers.

“Since when?”

“Since I planted them there.”

One blond leaves to seek the fruit by moonlight and scent. When he's had his fill, he trades places with his twin.

“Give us a kiss,” Loki says, still afloat on his back, and Thor dips to oblige him.

Loki can taste the berries on his brother's tongue and they both remember a day, over fifteen hundred years ago, when their mouths tasted the same way. Loki had found a single strawberry plant growing in his mother's flowerbeds, and had eaten the three fruits on it immediately. Thor only saw him doing it at the last second and shouted in alarm, worried that whatever Loki had just put in his mouth could have been poisonous. Loki insisted he knew strawberries when he saw them, but Thor wasn't yet confident that he could identify the plant by its leaves alone, which was all that remained for him to investigate. Loki huffed and rolled his eyes at having his judgment doubted, but then his face brightened. “Here, I'll show you,” he said, and with the unsqueamish pragmatism that belongs to small children, he instructed Thor to stick out his tongue. Once Thor had done so, Loki licked it. “See?” Loki said, and Thor nodded and smiled in relief, for Loki's tongue did, indeed, taste like strawberries, and when Loki returned Thor's grin, Thor could see that there were strawberry seeds stuck between his brother's teeth.

When the second Thor climbs back down into the stream with his belly full of fruit – and his teeth full of seeds - he makes straight for his brother. He scoops Loki up in his arms, then carries him out of the creek and back toward their tent, letting their skin drip dry while his twin collects their dressing gowns and follows on their heels.

Inside, Loki can hear one Thor turning down the bed and fluffing pillows while the other Thor keeps kissing him. Loki feels bad that the double of his brother is missing out on kisses.

“Shall I put you back together again?” Loki pants, as Thor sucks a bruise onto the side of his neck and pushes their bodies closer together with his third finger slotted into the cleft of Loki's ass.

“No,” Thor says, and swiftly resume his kisses.

“Shall I double myself?” Loki asks, and Thor drags his teeth along Loki's jaw.

“No.”

Loki hears a familiar weight settling on the bed behind him and then the soft slaps of bare skin being patted. Thor slides his hands down over the cool curves of his brother's buttocks and onto the thighs below, then dips his knees briefly and hoists Loki up in his arms to walk him to the bed. He seats Loki on his double's lap and Loki's eyes go wide.

“Thor.”

“Hmm?”

“You don't have to-”

“Do you want me to stop?” Thor asks, and Loki shakes his head no while his heart goes from a canter to a gallop in his chest.

Loki can feel Thor's cock where it's crushed against the small of his back. Thor's arms are around him and his hands are idly rubbing Loki's nipples as he kisses and sucks the spot behind Loki's left ear.

When Loki looks up, he sees the other Thor settling in front of him with a pot of salve. This Thor looks over Loki's left shoulder and Loki can feel his brother's head nodding against his own in answer. And then the hands that had been busy at Loki's breast drop down under his thighs and hoist him up again.

Loki sees the Thor in front of him reach into the jar to slick up his hand and then sees the hand disappear between his own legs. But then there's no pressure. No oil being rubbed into Loki's asshole with slow swirling strokes. But he can hear the wet sounds of skin being made slick. And then he realizes Thor is rubbing the oil along the length of his double's prick. Loki stiffens, jerks, and shouts. The Thors stare at the shiny streaks of semen that are running down Loki's belly. Their eyes meet again and they nod once.

And then Loki does feel the warm pads of fingers against his opening, gently working oil into every wrinkle and pleat, lazily circling their target. A few more drops of semen pump sluggishly out of his prick and dribble down into his fur. The hands under Loki's thighs lift again and separate slightly, forcing his legs farther apart and raising his knees to better offer up his asshole.

Thor puts more salve on his finger and then slowly swirls it around in the mouth of Loki's entrance. Thor loves this. He can feel the muscle giving way, bit by bit, unable to gain any traction on an oiled finger. First the nail disappears. Then the little knuckle. Then the big one. Until Thor's whole finger is lost in Loki's skin. Thor rolls the digit in small circles, pressing on the sensitive bulge at Loki's front with every pass. More semen trickles out of Loki's cock and the aftershocks of his orgasm make his anus clench around Thor's finger. Loki whines. Thor slides his finger almost all the way out, leaving only the tip within his brother's body, tormenting the muscle that's attempting to push him out until it finally gives up and goes slack. Thor takes his hand away and grabs his twin's prick. He lines it up and holds it steady as Loki is lowered onto it. Thor gets to see the way his own flesh compresses as Loki's body resists – he sees the shaft shortening and thickening with the weight that's descending on it. But then the flesh stretches out and stands tall again as the head makes it through, and inch after inch of thick taut cock gets swallowed up by a tight greedy hole.

Thor leans in to lick a stripe up Loki's cock and then leans even lower. Loki can feel Thor's tongue tracing the stretched skin of his hole. He hears Thor moan in his ear and realizes that Thor just licked the base of his own cock in the process.

And then one Thor can feel Loki's hole flexing around his cock and the other Thor can feel it twitching against his tongue. Loki's moan could more accurately be described as a whimper, and the seed that spurts out of him only makes it to his navel.

“Too much?” Thor says, and Loki nods. “Want more?” Thor asks, and Loki grins and hisses yes.

Loki's cock is in a sloppy, shriveled heap. The rosy head looks milky beneath its hazy glaze of semen. Thor leans down take it in his mouth, sucking it clean while Loki writhes, too sensitive for even the smoothness of Thor's lips and tongue. So Thor only sucks him harder, tugging at the tired skin and tormenting it back to life while Loki's hole flinches and flexes around the breadth of Thor's erection. Once it's long and hard again, Thor strokes Loki's cock while his twin lifts and lowers Loki's body, fucking him slowly. Thor pulls all the way out every time because his accomplice has a free hand with which to guide him back in again. This way, he gets to feel the little muscle failing to resist him and then failing to retain him, over and over. And it's so tight. Almost painful. Perfect.

Loki manages to hold out for thirty strokes this time before he paints his chest with fresh semen. Thor doesn't let him rest, and instead keeps dragging his brother up and down his shaft, letting Loki's own body weight aid him on the down stroke so that he's taken in to the hilt. He feels the broad base of his cock getting choked by Loki's hole. It traps the blood in his penis, making it longer, thicker, and harder. Thor leans in to suck Loki's cock again but his own voice halts him.

“I'll get it up for him,” the other Thor says, then lifts Loki halfway off his cock and starts bouncing him in a short rhythm.

The fat head of Thor's prick rubs Loki's prostate, rousing his penis and making his whole body burn. In half a minute, Loki's hard again, and all four of Thor's eyes are watching his cock as it bounces up and down above his belly. Thor leans over and holds his mouth steady above Loki's hips, shaping his lips into a loose O and letting Loki fuck into his mouth on every up-stroke. But it won't be enough, and they all know it. Loki's going to come from the cock in his ass – the lips are just there to offer him a tease.

Half an hour later, Thor gets a mouthful of semen and an earful of his own name, sobbed in time with the waves of Loki's orgasm.

When Thor begins to suck Loki's cock clean, Loki starts weeping, and Thor looks up, not yet worried, but ready to become so.

“Don't stop,” Loki gasps, and Thor nods and keeps sucking.

When Loki's cock is still soft in his mouth several minutes later, Thor decides to leave it alone. He moves on to kissing Loki's thighs as they rise and fall instead.

Thor still hasn't come in either case, but the one with his cock up his brother's ass is getting close. Thor can see his own balls drawing up tight. Then they lift and flex in swift bursts, pumping semen into Loki's spent body.

The doubles lift Loki slowly because they've always wanted to see this. Thor leans in close to watch as his softening cock slips free from Loki's body and a creamy stream of spunk trickles from Loki's loose red hole.

When they're satisfied that Loki's ass is empty, they set him on the bed. He rolls away onto his side and swiftly falls asleep.

Thor pats the space to his left, between himself and his brother, and his twin climbs forward to fill it.

Up to now, each Thor had believed it would merely be an exceptionally effective form of masturbation if he were to make love to himself. They hadn't considered all the complexities of lovemaking that aren't exclusively concerned with orgasm. The kisses and caresses. The moans, whimpers, and pleas that can mean I love you, or Keep going, or That hurts. The glances and blushes and breaths. The tenderness that builds trust.

“All right?” they ask, in unison, then smile and nod their heads.

“I'll lead,” says the Thor who's still soaked in his own semen, and it's a question.

His twin nods back at him and they both exhale in relief, then shuffle closer to each other and lean forward until the tips of their noses are touching. The Thor in the middle of the mattress waits. The one at the edge of the bed works up his nerve and remembers his manners.

“Comfortable?”

A nod and then a smile.

“And you'll stop me if there's anything-”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Another smile.

Thor reaches over and draws his twin closer, pressing gently between the shoulder blades with splayed fingers, then running his hand slowly up and down the spine, soothing his partner and mapping his skin. He sees the blue eyes in front of him flutter shut as his hand lingers at the base of the back. The sticky head of a very patient penis presses into his hip, so he drops his hand lower and cups the curves of the buttocks. They're warmer than Loki's, but cooler than Thor's upper back. He kneads and strokes the flesh until it relaxes under his hand, then gently grips his double by the hip and slowly tips his pelvis toward the ceiling of the tent until the man takes the hint and rolls onto his back. Then Thor turns to loom half over himself as his own face looks up at him, watching him and weighing him. Initially, it's unnerving, but then Thor remembers this is the only instance in which he'll ever have the advantage of knowing everything his partner likes without needing to ask first or experiment. He shifts and stretches out over his twin, slowly lowering himself until they're resting comfortably, flush against each other, while Thor holds just a bit of his weight up with his knees to keep their cocks from being crushed. He's always loved being sheltered by his lover's body - as though they're a roof over him. He loves it when long hair spills down around his face like an airy silk cocoon. Loves being kissed on the cheek where the bone leads back to the ear. And on the edge of the jaw. And on the eyebrows. And on the bridge of the nose. And especially on the mouth.

He's still expecting Loki's thin lips when he meets his own full ones. The kiss feels rich. A wealth of soft wet flesh. And the kiss is of the quiet searching sort. New. It reminds Thor of being young. Fragile. He kisses the corners of his mouth where the skin is delicate and ticklish, and his twin makes a small sound in the back of his throat, then parts his lips to let it out with his breath. When the lips remain parted, Thor lowers his head and nips them, one after the other. They nip back, and then heavy arms wrap around Thor's ribs. When he licks into the open mouth, plush lips close around his tongue and give it a slow, dreamy suck. He hums and rolls his hips a little and the hands on his back grip him tighter and then glide lower to grab his ass. When his twin tips his head to his right, he gratefully does the same, and their mouths nest together in a perfect fit as they take turns drinking each other in.

Their hips are working in tandem to grant them some of the touch they crave. Thor remembers how long it's been for his twin and begins kissing his way down, lingering on the neck for a long time because he's always loved how sensitive the skin is, and how satisfying it is to offer up such a vulnerable spot and be pleasured rather than slain. Then down to the nipples, where he spends many minutes with each of them, carefully licking and kissing them until they go from smooth shiny disks to taut pebbled peaks. He loves to have his navel nipped and tongued, so he does so. It stimulates nerves that still remember the days when the knotted flesh was an opening, which makes him feel like he might unspool from his middle.

There's a sticky pressure bobbing up against his neck now, and the ribs he left in his wake are rising and falling in a swift rhythm. Thor shuffles farther down the bed and gently eases his twin's legs apart, then settles carefully between them, kissing and stroking the fuzzy blond thighs in soothing encouragement. He slowly glides his right palm up his partner's leg until he's cupping two heavy testicles. Loki tends to neglect Thor's balls a bit because he gets distracted by their more exciting neighbors. But Thor has always loved to have them held and stroked and kissed. He leans in to nuzzle them and his twin hums a happy sound, so he lingers, tracing them with the tip of his nose, breathing in the musky tang of their sweat, and carefully mouthing the sac. He moves on to laving them with slow, firm passes of his tongue, flattening the sparse fur against the rounded forms and watching them tighten and shift from the chill of his spit. The thighs around Thor's shoulders spread wider to invite more, so he gives it, licking, kissing, and now humming to send the sound waves buzzing through the tender flesh.

He sees his twin's cock bobbing helplessly in front of him, so he follows the scrotum until it melts away into the satiny skin of the shaft and his tongue tastes the salty drops of fluid that have been falling from the slit. He wraps his mouth around the head and swirls his tongue through the folds at the neck of the foreskin to elicit a moan from his double. The cock between his lips bucks and drips at the attention. But Thor can already suck himself off: his back is long and he's very flexible, so if he rests on his shoulder blades and throws his hips up over his head, he can get the head of his cock in his mouth quite easily.

He kisses his way down again, nipping at the scrotum and the ticklish joints of the thighs before wedging his hands under his double's buttocks and urging them upward. His twin takes his meaning and bends at the waist, drawing his knees toward his shoulders and offering up his entrance.

This is what Thor can't kiss on his own. Can't see, smell, touch, or taste. The tiny opening that lets him take his brother's body into his own. A wrinkled bloom of pinkish dun. He bends to breathe its scent. Salt and copper. He finds the same flavors with his tongue. He hears a deep moan and smiles to himself as he licks through that path again. He feels the opening twitch under his tongue, so he teases it with playful lapping that grows firmer and more focused until it's a swirling pressure on the center. Saliva drips down onto the sheets as the tip of Thor's tongue keeps questing inward. Soft cries of encouragement drift up toward the roof of the tent and Thor heeds them. He presses on, deepening the kiss until his tongue has stretched as far as it will reach. He reluctantly retreats and picks up the salve, slicking his fingers and gently pressing one in. He watches it vanish. He feels the tight ring at the mouth and the smooth yielding walls further in. And he wants to know how good it would feel to bury his cock in that silken heat, but he's already had that satisfaction once tonight, so he reasons his partner should take this round of pleasure.

He urges his double to lie flat on the bed once again and then paints oil onto his twin's prick with the slow twisting strokes that he prefers, earning him a smile from the beauty on his back.

Thor pushes oil inside himself, then kneels over his partner and lowers his hips until he can feel the fat head of a prick pressed tight against his opening. He's longer and thicker than Loki. The stretch is good. New. He sinks down and feels full to bursting.

He calls Mjolnir and hands her to his lover, who rests her on the pillow to his right and holds her shaft high on the neck so he can brush his thumb along the underside of her head. She's been singing happily for over an hour, but now her song has a rhythm like breathing. Something essential and relentless. She's glowing blue with lightning. Riding the electricity in each of the Thors' nerves as the storm builds within them. Following the current over all their contours. Making their hair float around their heads like silky golden halos. She knows now what Thor will learn later - once Loki puts his two bodies back together again. She feels the kiss as it is given and received. Feels the arms tightening and the body held fast. She sings the joy it brings her deep into Thor's skin, praising his ecstasy and celebrating his love. And Mjolnir is incapable of deception. When she tells Thor This is goodness, then he knows it must be so.

He grins down at himself, giddy with loves that are both old and new. His love of his hammer, shared at long last with someone who knows her and needs her just as deeply as he does. His love of his brother, who gives him gifts he'd never think to ask for, but always finds afterward that he cannot live without. And now of himself. The man he least expected. Who knows his every heartache and failure. His triumphs and his joys. Who is smiling brightly back up at him and begging Don't stop, I'm getting close as their bodies glide together and the veins of lightning that surround them build to a whiteness that's blinding.

Mjolnir's done something with them. Loki isn't sure what. There's a white dome of light. Oblong. A bit like half an egg. The Thors are inside it; Loki and the hammer are not. When he tries, Loki finds he can't pass his hand through it, though it appears to have no substance. The closer his fingers get to it, the more the dome resists, like trying to butt the same ends of two magnets up against each other. He frowns and gets out of bed, climbing off at the foot because he's blocked in by the egg on the side. He puts the crown on his head and is pleased to find that he can see inside the forcefield, if only in his mind's eye. It's surprisingly dim within. And quiet. Private. Mjolnir merely wants the new lovers to have the luxury of intimacy. An evening spent in the world of each other's arms. The freedom to wake in the middle of the night and make love again without the worry of waking anyone.

Loki smiles and runs his fingers over the runes on the hammer's clever head, then leaves to fetch more strawberries for his brother's breakfast.

Four eyes are slowly fading from white to blue. Four lungs are panting in a way that's like laughter. Their hair is still floating around their heads. They're cleaner than they were when they climbed out of the stream – all sweat and spend were boiled away by lightning.

“Thank you,” they say.

“My pleasure,” they answer, then laugh at the inadvertent joke, for they both know they were being sincere.

 

**Author's Note:**

> please pretend commenting is turned off and please don't repost.


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